Perl versus Python 3 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. spectral-norm source secs mem gz busy cpu load Perl 24.69 12,188 555 96.59 97% 99% 98% 97% Python 3 120.99 13,424 407 479.86 99% 99% 99% 99% n-body source secs mem gz busy cpu load Perl 419.75 6,388 1429 429.50 1% 1% 1% 100% Python 3 567.56 8,076 1196 570.95 0% 0% 0% 100% k-nucleotide source secs mem gz busy cpu load Perl 37.72 1,255,884 652 131.45 88% 89% 87% 85% Python 3 46.28 241,108 1967 176.42 94% 97% 95% 96% reverse-complement source secs mem gz busy cpu load Perl 6.36 1,495,132 287 6.52 0% 0% 2% 100% Python 3 7.20 1,005,184 814 10.75 20% 53% 48% 29% binary-trees source secs mem gz busy cpu load Perl 53.02 1,048,568 797 195.75 91% 88% 100% 90% Python 3 51.07 278,324 589 178.28 85% 86% 93% 85% fannkuch-redux source secs mem gz busy cpu load Perl 392.54 12,116 570 1,568.84 100% 100% 100% 100% Python 3 352.29 12,232 950 1,392.10 97% 99% 100% 99% pidigits source secs mem gz busy cpu load Perl 1.90 8,268 261 2.16 100% 2% 3% 9% Python 3 1.28 12,024 567 1.29 0% 1% 100% 0% fasta source secs mem gz busy cpu load Perl 58.08 55,188 871 59.16 1% 100% 1% 0% Python 3 37.32 846,264 1947 71.03 10% 67% 83% 30% mandelbrot source secs mem gz busy cpu load Perl 542.82 45,036 586 2,169.30 100% 100% 100% 100% Python 3 163.32 12,080 688 642.00 98% 98% 98% 98% regex-redux source secs mem gz busy cpu load Perl 10.10 157,208 820 31.98 96% 67% 93% 61% Python 3 1.36 111,852 1403 2.64 32% 40% 33% 88% Perl This is perl 5, version 32, subversion 0 (v5.32.0) built for x86_64-linux-thread-multi Python 3 Python 3.9.2 all Perl programs & measurements all Python 3 programs & measurements