My own benchmarks against 10 other libraries...

[adriweb]

I've been developing a lua (de)serialization library benchmarking framework (works through busted and produces a nice readable output) - I hope to make it open-source some day, but in the meantime here are some interesting results :)

The holes that are present as the complexity increases simply mean that the library can't handle it.
For instance, in the "complex" category, there are big numbers, lua keywords and booleans as table keys, etc. In the "craziest" category, there are recursive tables, and here are some of the tests in the "crazy" category:

{
  ["unusual numbers"] = {
    ["math.pi"] = math.pi,
    ["math.sqrt(2)"] = math.sqrt(2),
    ["999e999"] = 999e999,
    ["math.huge (inf)"] = math.huge,
    ["0/0 (nan)"] = 0/0,
    ["1/0 (inf)"] = 1/0,
    ["-1/0 (-inf)"] = -1/0,
  },
...

Benchmark results:

Bitser manages to be the best in output length, by far, while being very good at speed and memory usage. It's clearly the best overall, at least for my usescases :)

╔═════════════ simple (de)serialization ══════════════╗
╠══════════════ Benchmarking 20 iters. ═══════════════╣
║ library         │ Σms      ms/it    Σlen     Σmem   ║
╠═════════════════════════════════════════════════════╣
║ luabins         │ 132.8    6.6      394775   41.9k  ║
║ msgpack         │ 138.7    6.9      224338   59.4k  ║
║ lua-cjson       │ 149.4    7.5      273792   43.4k  ║
║ marshal         │ 173.3    8.7      380201   58k    ║
║ bitser          │ 253.1    12.7     82814    50.2k  ║
║ binser          │ 296.2    14.8     85274    71.1k  ║
║ plPretty        │ 484.2    24.2     249506   65.4k  ║
║ ser             │ 545      27.3     329702   76.1k  ║
║ smallfolk       │ 609.1    30.5     269106   66.8k  ║
║ plPrettyPlain   │ 648.9    32.4     310550   62.3k  ║
║ luvitJson       │ 656.1    32.8     273792   56k    ║
║ serpent         │ 1500.6   75       250003   45.1k  ║
╚═════════════════════════════════════════════════════╝

╔═════════════ complex (de)serialization ═════════════╗
╠══════════════ Benchmarking 20 iters. ═══════════════╣
║ library         │ Σms      ms/it    Σlen     Σmem   ║
╠═════════════════════════════════════════════════════╣
║ marshal         │ 865      43.2     564914   24.1k  ║
║ bitser          │ 1013     50.7     121717   23.7k  ║
║ binser          │ 1018.2   50.9     123153   24.6k  ║
║ ser             │ 1407.4   70.4     488008   25k    ║
║ smallfolk       │ 1440.6   72       398057   24.4k  ║
║ luabins         │ 1797.7   89.9     5288543  23.4k  ║
║ msgpack         │ 1822.3   91.1     2978608  24.3k  ║
║ serpent         │ 2845.1   142.3    369182   23.6k  ║
║ lua-cjson       │ -        -        -        -      ║
║ luvitJson       │ -        -        -        -      ║
║ plPretty        │ -        -        -        -      ║
║ plPrettyPlain   │ -        -        -        -      ║
╚═════════════════════════════════════════════════════╝

╔══════════════ crazy (de)serialization ══════════════╗
╠══════════════ Benchmarking 20 iters. ═══════════════╣
║ library         │ Σms      ms/it    Σlen     Σmem   ║
╠═════════════════════════════════════════════════════╣
║ marshal         │ 1378.8   68.9     189142   34.5k  ║
║ bitser          │ 1488     74.4     41157    34.2k  ║
║ ser             │ 1591.5   79.6     163043   34.9k  ║
║ serpent         │ 2088     104.4    123961   34k    ║
║ luabins         │ 3155.6   157.8    9783180  33.8k  ║
║ msgpack         │ 3318.1   165.9    5514850  34.7k  ║
║ lua-cjson       │ -        -        -        -      ║
║ binser          │ -        -        -        -      ║
║ luvitJson       │ -        -        -        -      ║
║ plPretty        │ -        -        -        -      ║
║ plPrettyPlain   │ -        -        -        -      ║
║ smallfolk       │ -        -        -        -      ║
╚═════════════════════════════════════════════════════╝

╔════════════ craziest (de)serialization ═════════════╗
╠══════════════ Benchmarking 20 iters. ═══════════════╣
║ library         │ Σms      ms/it    Σlen     Σmem   ║
╠═════════════════════════════════════════════════════╣
║ marshal         │ 0.9      0        889      4.4k   ║
║ bitser          │ 1.6      0.1      252      4.4k   ║
║ ser             │ 2.2      0.1      567      4.4k   ║
║ serpent         │ 4.5      0.2      456      4.4k   ║
║ lua-cjson       │ -        -        -        -      ║
║ binser          │ -        -        -        -      ║
║ luabins         │ -        -        -        -      ║
║ luvitJson       │ -        -        -        -      ║
║ msgpack         │ -        -        -        -      ║
║ plPretty        │ -        -        -        -      ║
║ plPrettyPlain   │ -        -        -        -      ║
║ smallfolk       │ -        -        -        -      ║
╚═════════════════════════════════════════════════════╝

[gvx]

That's awesome! Do let me know if and when you open-source it!

Funny, I expected Ser and Smallfolk to do a lot worse, given that I've marked them as deprecated almost five years ago.