Python 3 versus C gcc 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 Python 3 1.36 111,852 1403 2.64 32% 40% 33% 88% C gcc 0.80 152,196 1397 2.03 48% 100% 54% 53% pidigits source secs mem gz busy cpu load Python 3 1.28 12,024 567 1.29 0% 1% 100% 0% C gcc 0.73 2,848 416 0.75 1% 100% 1% 0% reverse-complement source secs mem gz busy cpu load Python 3 7.20 1,005,184 814 10.75 20% 53% 48% 29% C gcc 0.86 698,264 820 1.27 1% 18% 100% 28% k-nucleotide source secs mem gz busy cpu load Python 3 46.28 241,108 1967 176.42 94% 97% 95% 96% C gcc 3.81 130,112 1506 12.18 54% 87% 79% 100% binary-trees source secs mem gz busy cpu load Python 3 51.07 278,324 589 178.28 85% 86% 93% 85% C gcc 1.79 168,760 809 5.35 64% 64% 71% 100% fannkuch-redux source secs mem gz busy cpu load Python 3 352.29 12,232 950 1,392.10 97% 99% 100% 99% C gcc 7.52 836 910 29.37 99% 100% 93% 99% fasta source secs mem gz busy cpu load Python 3 37.32 846,264 1947 71.03 10% 67% 83% 30% C gcc 0.78 1,220 1463 0.79 1% 0% 0% 100% mandelbrot source secs mem gz busy cpu load Python 3 163.32 12,080 688 642.00 98% 98% 98% 98% C gcc 1.27 31,692 1135 5.08 100% 100% 100% 99% n-body source secs mem gz busy cpu load Python 3 567.56 8,076 1196 570.95 0% 0% 0% 100% C gcc 2.18 740 1633 2.19 0% 0% 0% 100% spectral-norm source secs mem gz busy cpu load Python 3 120.99 13,424 407 479.86 99% 99% 99% 99% C gcc 0.40 1,928 1197 1.57 100% 98% 100% 98% Python 3 Python 3.9.2 C gcc gcc (Ubuntu 10.2.0-13ubuntu1) 10.2.0 all Python 3 programs & measurements all C gcc programs & measurements