Opera easily beats major browsers with JavaScript speed test
Published August 2nd, 2006 10:08 AM EDT By Daniel GoldmanOpera has been proven once again that it is the fastest browser on earth.
A few people emailed this morning about a test that was done to determine which browser executes and handles JavaScript code the fastest. The test is simple enough, so you can try it out yourself. Just click the button on the test page, and it will display the execution time.
The results are quite amazing, but not surprising.
Of the three major browsers (Internet Explorer (IE), Opera, and Firefox) tested, Opera beat the other browsers hands down. The test showed how the Opera browser executes a series of JavaScript code faster than the other browsers. In fact, Opera is 3.5 times faster than both IE and Firefox, the test showed.
The Opera browser has been known for its speed, this test doesn’t surprise me much, other than just prove the point.
Go ahead, run the test yourself.
Related Articles:
If you enjoyed this post, then make sure you subscribe to my RSS Feed.
using
Weird Flock turned out to be faster than Firefox.
using
I got 1040 on may PentiumM 1.7Ghz laptop, with “Power Saver” settings, and 421 with “Performance” settings.
Even in Power Save mode, it’ still faster than Firefox and IE!!
using
Well I guess the 9 month old Gecko is showing signs of aging. Must see how 1.9 will do (not the dev version)
using
Konqueror is pretty fast too.
Konqueror 3.5.3 1200-1300ms
Opera 9 1100-1400ms.
The Opera results seem to scatter more than Konquerors.
using
Opera may be fast at JavaScript, but it’s incredibly slow at other things. Complex CSS-based background changes, such as through hovers or JavaScript-altered styles, drag like crazy. If a page uses any CSS3 translucency, I just have to disable CSS because the page scrolls ridiculously slowly. It’s also quite laggy with any page that has an attached (non-scrolling) background image. My computer’s a little slow for the day (1.6 GHz, Radeon 9200), but the point is that on my hardware, Firefox has absolutely no problem with either, and IE renders the CSS background changing quickly as well.
using
Wow! Very interesting!
using
Another one : http://www.24fun.com/downloadcenter/benchjs/benchjs.html
using
I get 3000ms in Opera 7.54u2 and 1500ms in IE6.
using
IE: 1202-1292ms
FF: 1442-1503ms
Opera: 401-441ms
using
Simple test may result in incredibly great results, by I can’t use NewsAlloy in 9.0 because of slowness, and see annoying loss of speed at BlogLines, RememberTheMilk and Netvibes.
using
That’s because they have been optimized for IE and maybe Firefox, but probably not for Opera, so the comparison is inherently unfair.
using
very interesting. On a band new setup I can repeat the results, but on my Opera setup which has mail, a few windows opened..etc the test slows down drastically by String functions (1781 ms). Is anyone getting this as well?
using
These tests are of no value as long as Opera has
such awful bug that affects a lot of important sites.
using
It seems like to me that when gmail.com is opened, the test takes an extra 400-500ms. Can someone confirm?
using
@Wajo357
I too experienced this string function problem. I had several windows opened and both IE and FF opened all at the same time while testing. Here are the fastest results I could come up with when multiple windows were opened all at once…
http://img519.imageshack.us/img519/4627/javascriptspeedtest2rp7.png
This is a test I did with a fresh opening of Opera…
http://img474.imageshack.us/img474/4739/javascriptspeedtest3kp0.png
Wenty from 1859ms to 375ms! Incredible!
Also, yes Gmail does seem to slow it down some, but my 375ms just went up to 610ms. Still not bad!
using
That is not true in the Linux builds.
Any Linux Opera users check out your CPU usage while running this, and then compare it to other browsers (such as Konueror).
I’l been trying to get them to fix those rendering issues. I can’t tell if it’s doing any good though…
using
Not surprising at all. The BenchJS tests show the speed of Opera when executing javascript. What’s surprising is the low score of FF and that even IE has a small edge on it. How do other gecko-based browsers fare?
using
I find it interesting that Opera beats out the competition even though it is considerably slower with string functions compared to the competition. If its performance in that area could be improved, I wonder how fast it would be then.
using
While benchmark tests are fun to brag about, nobody actually uses benchmarks tests while surfing. What you really want is for the “real” code to be instrumented.
While it would be next to impossible to get proper website to include such code, an example of what I mean is the recent TiddlyWiki beta. This is a very complicated client-side script. For testing purposes during development, they added a performance check.
On my system, Opera usually takes 800ms to process the script, Firefox about 1000ms (25% longer) and IE about 1140ms (42.5% longer).
Another good thing about that page is that you can download it to your computer and totally eliminate network latency from the numbers.
I consider that a much better test than some arbitrary benchmark.
using
LOL
My IE6 must be screwy somewhere check this:
Opera:
Try/Catch with errors 0
Layer movement 47
Random number engine 62
Math engine 94
DOM speed 31
Array functions 47
String functions 63
Ajax declaration 15
IE6:
It gets hung up on two stages!
Try/Catch with errors 15
Layer movement 328
Random number engine 47
Math engine 125
DOM speed 6969
Array functions 16
String functions 0
Ajax declaration 29516
Total Duration 37016ms
Pretty much a fresh install, as i recently formatted the partition, as well all patched and up to date … wierd eh?
Good thing i dont use it, so i dont really care
using
Yes, I’m seeing the same stumble on string functions as some others do. What’s going on? I do have a number of tabs open, but that should be n/a. Firefox finishes at about 2100, 2200 or so. No dramatic difference here.
Try/Catch with errors 78
Layer movement 63
Random number engine 62
Math engine 110
DOM speed 47
Array functions 62
String functions 1484
Ajax declaration 32
Total Duration 1938 ms
using
Wajo357:
On my Linux w/ Gnome 2.14 the String function test is also *reaally* slow. When about 30 tabs are open (and music player in the background eating a bit of CPU) the string test takes about 3000 msec on first run and 1000-1500 msec on subsequent runs.
using
I just tried it in Virtual PC, which is a barren install of XP SP2 along with a brand-new 9.01, no other tabs, and I get these still-high numbers (or pretty close) every time:
Try/Catch with errors 10
Layer movement 170
Random number engine 101
Math engine 140
DOM speed 70
Array functions 90
String functions 210
Ajax declaration 70
Total Duration 861 ms
How much cleaner could it possibly be?! But perhaps that’s because it’s in VPC. Is this test highly memory or CPU dependent? If so, I guess that explains VPC.
So I closed all my tabs in my main 9.01 Opera (outside of VPC: machine 3GHz P4 with 2GB RAM), and without restarting it got this:
Try/Catch with errors 15
Layer movement 141
Random number engine 78
Math engine 125
DOM speed 63
Array functions 62
String functions 672
Ajax declaration 16
Total Duration 1172 ms
Ran it again, got this (seriously):
Try/Catch with errors 0
Layer movement 47
Random number engine 93
Math engine 110
DOM speed 62
Array functions 63
String functions 93
Ajax declaration 32
Total Duration 500 ms
Closed Opera, ran it again, and then got this:
Try/Catch with errors 15
Layer movement 63
Random number engine 94
Math engine 109
DOM speed 47
Array functions 78
String functions 156
Ajax declaration 47
Total Duration 609 ms
Ran it again, got this:
Try/Catch with errors 16
Layer movement 78
Random number engine 78
Math engine 109
DOM speed 63
Array functions 62
String functions 172
Ajax declaration 47
Total Duration 625 ms
Opened all my tabs (15-20) again and saw it go from 1437 to 1640 to 1125 to 1250 to 1094.
Perhaps this test is severely affected by what else you have running. I didn’t try closing down every last thing, including tray apps, but perhaps if I did I’d get good numbers. Not that I’d ever do that in real life.
In summary, I think this test is whacked.
using
More numbers in the newsgroup opera.general: Opera 9 Fastese JavaScript