Benchmark: Lodash.js vs Javascript (meanBy)

HTML Preparation code:

<script src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/npm/lodash@4.17.4/lodash.min.js"></script>

Script Preparation code:

const data = Array.from({ length: 1_000_000 }, (_, i) => ({ value: i % 100 }));

function nativeMeanBy(array, key) {
  const sum = array.reduce((acc, obj) => acc + obj[key], 0);
  return sum / array.length;
}

function lodashMeanBy(array, key) {
  return _.meanBy(array, key);
}

Tests:

Native
nativeMeanBy(data, 'value')
Lodash
lodashMeanBy(data, 'value')

Rendered benchmark preparation results:

Suite status: <idle, ready to run>

Previous results

Test case name	Result
Native
Lodash

Fastest: N/A

Slowest: N/A

Latest run results:

Run details: (Test run date: one year ago)

User agent: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows NT 10.0; Win64; x64) AppleWebKit/537.36 (KHTML, like Gecko) Chrome/136.0.0.0 Safari/537.36

Browser/OS: Chrome 136 on Windows

View result in a separate tab

Test name	Executions per second
Native	116.8 Ops/sec
Lodash	138.3 Ops/sec

Autogenerated LLM Summary (model gpt-4o-mini, generated one year ago):

LLMs can make mistakes. Check important info.

The benchmark defined in the JSON compares the performance of two methods for calculating the mean of a set of objects: a native JavaScript implementation and one using the Lodash library. Here’s a breakdown of the components, their pros and cons, and other relevant considerations.

### Comparison Overview:

**Options Compared:**
1. **Native Method (`nativeMeanBy`)**
   - **Implementation:** Uses JavaScript's built-in `Array.prototype.reduce` method to sum values and compute the mean.
   - **Function Code:**
     ```javascript
     function nativeMeanBy(array, key) {
       const sum = array.reduce((acc, obj) => acc + obj[key], 0);
       return sum / array.length;
     }
     ```

2. **Lodash Method (`lodashMeanBy`)**
   - **Implementation:** Utilizes the Lodash library's `_.meanBy` function to perform the same operation.
   - **Function Code:**
     ```javascript
     function lodashMeanBy(array, key) {
       return _.meanBy(array, key);
     }
     ```

### Performance Results:
- **Lodash:**
  - Executions per second: 138.29
- **Native JavaScript:**
  - Executions per second: 116.76

### Pros and Cons:

#### Native Method:
**Pros:**
- **No external dependencies:** This method only relies on standard JavaScript, making it lighter and ensuring it works in any environment where JavaScript is supported.
- **Control and clarity:** Developers have full control over the implementation, which can be tailored or optimized further if necessary.

**Cons:**
- **Potentially less optimized:** While JavaScript engines are highly optimized, the native implementation might not leverage certain optimizations that a library like Lodash can provide.

#### Lodash Method:
**Pros:**
- **Conciseness and readability:** Using Lodash can make code shorter and potentially easier to read, especially for developers familiar with its syntax.
- **Optimization in handling various cases:** Lodash functions are meticulously optimized; they may perform better or handle edge cases more gracefully than a custom implementation.

**Cons:**
- **Dependency overhead:** Including the Lodash library can increase the size of the payload for a web application, which might be a concern for performance and loading times.
- **Additional complexity:** Using libraries introduces another layer of abstraction and might complicate debugging.

### Other Considerations:
- **Special JS Features:** The benchmark does not utilize any special JavaScript features beyond standard array manipulation methods.
- **Alternatives to Lodash:** There are several alternatives to Lodash for performing similar operations, including:
  - **Underscore.js:** An earlier library with many of the same utilities as Lodash.
  - **Native JavaScript Solutions:** As demonstrated in the benchmark, using built-in array methods like `map`, `reduce`, and `filter`.
  - **Other libraries**: Such as Ramda or Immutable.js, which offer functional programming features tailored for various use cases.

### Conclusion:
This benchmark exemplifies the trade-offs between using a library versus native JavaScript. While Lodash offers convenience and potentially better optimization, the native method is lightweight and can be customized without introducing external dependencies. Developers should consider factors like package size, performance, readability, and maintainability when choosing between these approaches.

Related benchmarks:

Lodash.js vs Javascript (meanBy) (version: 1)

Comparing performance of: Native vs Lodash

Created: one year ago by: Guest

Jump to the latest result

Native

Lodash

Suite status: <idle, ready to run>

Fastest: N/A

Slowest: N/A

Autogenerated LLM Summary (model gpt-4o-mini, generated one year ago):