Performance of browsers is a hot topic nowadays, and Ajax Toolkits are always busy squeezing out those last milliseconds. Internally at Backbase we also have a performance testing framework which tests every release for possible performance degradation. Normally we only compare different versions of Backbase, but what if we compare different browsers? And what if we compare it to IE8 beta 1 (released today), Firefox nightly, and Safari nightly builds?

Test setup

The tests are run on the same machine being a Pentium 4 (2.4Ghz) with Windows XP SP2. Every test is run multiple times to get a decent performance result.

There are different kind tests, I have separated them in 2 sections: JavaScript performance and Render performance (DOM).

JavaScript Performance

The first section is the Javascript Engine of Backbase and testing various scenarios, for instance:

• TDL Compiling / parsing
• Javascript XPath 2.0 Engine
• XEL execution / event propagation

Render Performance (DOM)

The second part is rendering widgets, for example:

• Rendering 1 accordion
• Rendering 5 accordions
• Rendering a listGrid
• etc..

JavaScript Performance (Engine)

The following diagram is a summary of the time it takes to execute the different engine performance tests

We can see impressive results for Firefox 3 nightly, being almost 3x faster than Firefox 2. Also the Webkit nightly is running fast, and that when you thought that Safari 3 was already blazingly fast!

IE8 beta1 was only released today, so we haven't been able to test it as thoroughly as the other browsers. However, it's clear that JavaScript performance has improved.

The last place ends Opera 9.5 beta (huh, what's up?) but the main reason for this is the test for the event propagation being 5x slower in Opera than Firefox. If we do not accumulate those tests in the result Opera 9.5b is at the same speed as Firefox 3 beta 3

Render Performance (DOM)

The following diagram is a summary of the time it takes to render different controls, both hidden and visible on the screen. It's mainly showing the DOM-operation speed of dynamically creating elements and the actual rendering when the element is attached to the main document.

There is no doubt here, the Webkit engine is the fastest renderer. The nightly being 5x times faster than Internet Explorer 6/7/8. So in theory you could visit and see 5 websites with Safari in the same time it takes Internet Explorer to render it's default MSN.com website.

IE 8 beta 1 - only briefly tested - seems to have the slowest DOM rendering, but of course it's only a beta 1. We've tested in IE7 mode.

We can also see some real effort put in the Gecko engine with the Firefox 3 rendering almost 2x times faster than Firefox 2.

Full test data

I have put the full specification ( and the milliseconds ;-) ) online in Google Docs you can check it out here.

The first sections show the JavaScript performance (from 'Core Renderer' to 'XPath 2.0 Engine'). The sections after that show the Render performance (from 'Accordion' to 'window').

Conclusion

A lot of respect and thanks to all the browser teams pushing the boundary of performance. I think it's an awesome result that the current nightlies of both Webkit and Gecko are 2x / 3x faster than the current production versions. Can't wait until Firefox 3 is released to the public!

It seems the IE team still needs to do a lot of optimization in the render engine, but still we have to consider that it's a beta 1. So let's hope they either improve some more or everybody switches to Firefox / Safari.