Performance Tests on Common JavaScript Array Methods

This blog post is about comparing the running times of the most commonly used ways to loop through an array in JavaScript in order to see which one is the most efficient.

The tests

The idea is very simple. I compared the running times of five very common ways ( map, forEach, for, while, do while) of looping through an array using an array of 100 values and another array of 10 million values. The code used was run in a Node.js runtime environment version 16.14.0 inside a Ubuntu 20 laptop.

Testing the .map() method

Here is the code used for an array of 100 values

const arraySize = 100;

const arrayToTest = Array(arraySize)
  .fill(0)
  .map((_, i) => i);

// small code to warm up the process used
for (let index = 0; index < arrayToTest; index++) {
  index * index + Math.sqrt(item);
}

console.time('map');
arrayToTest.map((item, index) => {
  return (arrayToTest[index] = item * item + Math.sqrt(item));
});
console.timeEnd('map');

Here is the result I got from the above code :

map: 0.150ms

For an array of 10 million values, I used the same code as above while just replacing the arraySize constant with 10000000. Here is the result I got :

map: 1865.563ms

Testing the .forEach() method

Here is the code used for an array of 100 values

const arraySize = 100;

const arrayToTest = Array(arraySize)
  .fill(0)
  .map((_, i) => i);

// small code to warm up the process used
for (let index = 0; index < arrayToTest; index++) {
  index * index + Math.sqrt(item);
}

console.time('forEach');
arrayToTest.forEach((item, index) => {
  return (arrayToTest[index] = item * item + Math.sqrt(item));
});
console.timeEnd('forEach');

Here is the result I got from the above code :

forEach: 0.137ms

For an array of 10 million values, I used the same code as above while just replacing the arraySize constant with 10000000. Here is the result I got :

forEach: 1201.149ms

Testing the for loop

Here is the code used for an array of 100 values

const arraySize = 100;

const arrayToTest = Array(arraySize)
  .fill(0)
  .map((_, i) => i);

// small code to warm up the process used
for (let index = 0; index < arrayToTest; index++) {
  index * index + Math.sqrt(item);
}

console.time('for');
for (let i = 0; i < arrayToTest.length; i++) {
  arrayToTest[i] = arrayToTest[i] * arrayToTest[i] + Math.sqrt(arrayToTest[i]);
}
console.timeEnd('for');

Here is the result I got from the above code :

for: 0.127ms

For an array of 10 million values, I used the same code as above while just replacing the arraySize constant with 10000000. Here is the result I got :

for: 109.778ms

Testing the while loop

Here is the code used for an array of 100 values

const arraySize = 100;

const arrayToTest = Array(arraySize)
  .fill(0)
  .map((_, i) => i);

// small code to warm up the process used
for (let index = 0; index < arrayToTest; index++) {
  index * index + Math.sqrt(item);
}

console.time('while');
let i = 0;
while (i < arrayToTest.length) {
  arrayToTest[i] = arrayToTest[i] * arrayToTest[i] + Math.sqrt(arrayToTest[i]);
  i++;
}
console.timeEnd('while');

Here is the result I got from the above code :

while: 0.294ms

For an array of 10 million values, I used the same code as above while just replacing the arraySize constant with 10000000. Here is the result I got :

while: 108.698ms

Testing the do…while loop

Here is the code used for an array of 100 values

const arraySize = 100;

const arrayToTest = Array(arraySize)
  .fill(0)
  .map((_, i) => i);

// small code to warm up the process used
for (let index = 0; index < arrayToTest; index++) {
  index * index + Math.sqrt(item);
}

console.time('do while');
let i = 0;
do {
  arrayToTest[i] = arrayToTest[i] * arrayToTest[i] + Math.sqrt(arrayToTest[i]);
  i++;
} while (i < arrayToTest.length);
console.timeEnd('do while');

Here is the result I got from the above code :

do while: 0.118ms

For an array of 10 million values, I used the same code as above while just replacing the arraySize constant with 10000000. Here is the result I got :

do while: 124.894ms

Summary

For the array with 100 values, here are the results I got

map: 0.150ms
forEach: 0.137ms
for: 0.127ms
while: 0.120ms
do while: 0.118ms

For the second array with 10 millions values, here are the results I got

map: 1865.563ms
forEach: 1201.149ms
for: 109.778ms
while: 145.869ms
do while: 124.894ms

• In small arrays, the optimization work done by the V8 engine while compiling our JavaScript code is good enough and the running times of the methods tested above are very close.

• In big arrays, map() and forEach() take much more time (more than eleven times as shown in this example) than the other methods. One factor causing this additional time is invoking callback functions which consume more memory and therefore add more performance costs in big arrays. for while or do while have very close running times in big arrays and it is difficult to say, at least from the examples above, that one is radically faster than the others in big arrays. Additional tests are needed in that sense to determine which method is the most efficient.

Conclusion

• Whenever we have to write a loop, it is important to consider what solution works best. In relatively small arrays, the optimization work done by the V8 engine is good enough. However, when processing a large amount of data, then the performance cost might be important if we don’t carefully choose the most efficient solution and the running time then might be, eleven times more in some cases as shown in the results above.

• Performance is not the only thing that matters. Code readability and maintainability are also very important when writing code in any programming language. You can check a previous article I wrote on how to write clean code for JavaScript developers.