Lua versus Node js fastest programs Always look at the source code. These are only the fastest programs. Do some of them use manually vectorized SIMD? Look at the other programs. They may seem more-like a fair comparison to you. regex-redux source secs mem gz busy cpu load Lua 2.57 326,464 482 2.61 1% 100% 1% 0% Node js 4.79 1,159,940 668 5.86 91% 2% 1% 29% binary-trees source secs mem gz busy cpu load Lua 48.15 923,628 664 178.89 97% 92% 91% 91% Node js 6.95 1,309,892 744 21.41 76% 75% 88% 69% k-nucleotide source secs mem gz busy cpu load Lua 114.82 596,536 613 115.62 0% 100% 0% 0% Node js 15.73 392,924 1812 43.25 91% 62% 75% 47% fasta source secs mem gz busy cpu load Lua 25.72 2,840 1061 25.76 100% 0% 0% 0% Node js 2.04 71,304 2047 6.32 75% 80% 80% 75% reverse-complement source secs mem gz busy cpu load Lua 40.62 2,654,732 553 41.04 0% 100% 1% 0% Node js 2.13 1,525,096 1481 4.31 11% 70% 62% 60% n-body source secs mem gz busy cpu load Lua 208.01 1,240 1305 208.83 0% 0% 100% 0% Node js 8.39 35,548 1268 8.74 0% 2% 2% 100% mandelbrot source secs mem gz busy cpu load Lua 113.06 18,572 623 394.49 86% 100% 77% 86% Node js 4.04 92,960 1122 15.95 100% 98% 98% 98% spectral-norm source secs mem gz busy cpu load Lua 79.73 2,780 329 79.91 0% 0% 100% 0% Node js 1.84 64,452 999 6.18 83% 86% 83% 83% fannkuch-redux source secs mem gz busy cpu load Lua 526.61 1,296 462 534.49 0% 0% 1% 100% Node js 11.97 63,036 1313 45.89 96% 96% 95% 96% pidigits source secs mem gz busy cpu load Lua Failed Node js 6.14 66,508 530 6.25 1% 0% 77% 24% Lua Lua 5.4.2 Copyright (C) 1994-2020 Lua.org, PUC-Rio Node js v15.10.0 all Lua programs & measurements all Node js programs & measurements