Ruby versus Matz's Ruby fastest programs Always look at the source code. These are only the fastest programs. Look at the other programs. They may seem more-like a fair comparison to you. binary-trees source secs mem gz busy cpu load Ruby 44.67 531,624 1096 126.74 79% 60% 73% 72% Matz's Ruby 1,268.05 839,888 400 1,281.19 60% 0% 40% 0% fannkuch-redux source secs mem gz busy cpu load Ruby 307.68 26,776 1444 1,190.76 98% 95% 96% 98% Matz's Ruby 6,692.98 19,320 1444 25,945.29 97% 99% 97% 96% mandelbrot source secs mem gz busy cpu load Ruby 340.43 65,964 931 1,353.94 100% 99% 99% 99% Matz's Ruby 4,299.88 68,672 931 17,193.33 100% 100% 100% 100% n-body source secs mem gz busy cpu load Ruby 376.42 25,112 1137 401.06 92% 2% 4% 9% Matz's Ruby 4,386.74 4,084 1137 4,426.81 65% 0% 0% 35% fasta source secs mem gz busy cpu load Ruby 51.46 122,960 1069 57.67 20% 22% 47% 23% Matz's Ruby 477.60 101,796 1020 486.43 13% 85% 0% 3% pidigits source secs mem gz busy cpu load Ruby 3.21 369,020 485 5.35 21% 31% 15% 100% Matz's Ruby 29.43 18,384 518 29.65 100% 0% 0% 0% spectral-norm source secs mem gz busy cpu load Ruby 154.65 26,296 839 603.60 98% 98% 97% 97% Matz's Ruby 973.55 21,068 839 3,842.21 99% 98% 99% 99% k-nucleotide source secs mem gz busy cpu load Ruby 106.07 145,640 644 387.67 92% 93% 87% 93% Matz's Ruby 314.56 127,080 644 1,036.20 93% 81% 82% 73% regex-redux source secs mem gz busy cpu load Ruby 15.85 277,116 724 35.00 93% 39% 41% 48% Matz's Ruby 33.42 223,840 724 75.30 43% 42% 74% 66% reverse-complement source secs mem gz busy cpu load Ruby 31.78 511,692 264 34.71 5% 54% 47% 4% Matz's Ruby 38.45 492,804 264 38.84 100% 0% 1% 0% Ruby ruby 2.7.0p0 (2019-12-25 revision 647ee6f091) [x86_64-linux] --jit Matz's Ruby ruby 1.8.7 (2008-08-11 patchlevel 72) [x86_64-linux] So old that I haven't been able to get rubygems to work no backport, no gmp all Ruby programs & measurements all Matz's Ruby programs & measurements