04 March 2013

Kay Hayen
Python Nuitka

PyStone Comparison Nuitka, Cython, and CPython

As you all know, Nuitka (see “what is Nuitka?” ) has recently completed a milestone. Always short on time, I am not doing a whole lot of benchmarking yet, and focus on development. But here is an interesting submission from Dave Kierans (CTO of iPowow! Ltd):

➜  ~  python pystone.py 1000000
Pystone(1.1) time for 1000000 passes = 10.2972
This machine benchmarks at 97113.5 pystones/second
➜  ~  cython --embed pystone.py;gcc pystone.c -I/usr/include/python2.6 -L /usr/lib/ -lpython2.6 -o ./pystone.cython;./pystone.cython 1000000
Pystone(1.1) time for 1000000 passes = 8.20789
This machine benchmarks at 121834 pystones/second
➜  ~  nuitka-python pystone.py 1000000
Pystone(1.1) time for 1000000 passes = 4.06196
This machine benchmarks at 246187 pystones/second

This is nice result for Nuitka, even if we all know that pystone is not a really good benchmark at all, and that its results definitely do not translate to other software. It definitely makes me feel good. With the 0.4.x series kicked off, it will be exciting to see, where these numbers can indeed go, once Nuitka actually applies standard compiler techniques.

Nuitka Release 0.4.0   Nuitka Release 0.4.1