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 0.80 152,172 1397 2.01 52% 99% 48% 53% pidigits source secs mem gz busy cpu load Python 3 1.28 12,024 567 1.29 0% 1% 100% 0% C gcc 0.59 2,444 1090 2.37 100% 100% 100% 98% 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 0.86 712,208 820 1.27 99% 28% 1% 19% k-nucleotide source secs mem gz busy cpu load Python 3 46.28 241,108 1967 176.42 94% 97% 95% 96% C gcc 3.72 130,260 1506 12.07 100% 89% 78% 57% binary-trees source secs mem gz busy cpu load Python 3 51.07 278,324 589 178.28 85% 86% 93% 85% C gcc 1.54 168,832 809 4.35 60% 67% 57% 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 7.58 872 910 29.61 100% 98% 99% 93% 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 1,156 1463 0.78 0% 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 31,792 1135 5.08 100% 100% 99% 100% n-body source secs mem gz busy cpu load Python 3 567.56 8,076 1196 570.95 0% 0% 0% 100% C gcc 2.18 768 1633 2.19 0% 100% 0% 0% spectral-norm source secs mem gz busy cpu load Python 3 120.99 13,424 407 479.86 99% 99% 99% 99% C gcc 0.40 872 1197 1.58 100% 100% 100% 98% Python 3 Python 3.9.2 C gcc gcc (Ubuntu 10.3.0-1ubuntu1) 10.3.0 all Python 3 programs & measurements all C gcc programs & measurements