Why is node.js runtime slower than Google chrome Console

Question

We know that Chrome and node.js runs on the same V8 javascript engine. My understanding:

• Chrome should be slow, it not only handles the internal execution but also does extra UI work
• node.js should be fast, it has no extra UI work

So, was comparing simple speed test for node.js's V8 javascript

With Chrome's V8

Why is node.js so slower than Chrome?

Btw, here is the code:

function speedTest(){
    console.time("loop");
    for (var i = 0; i < 1000000; i += 1){
        // Do nothing
    }
    console.timeEnd("loop");
}

Answer 1

TL;DR In absolute terms, it's not.

First, those numbers are not 'different enough' to represent a real performance difference. Yes, in this trial they may differ by 25%, but in the context of concern , it's not significant.

Second, V8 is not doing the UI work in Chrome: compositing, rendering and painting are done on processes and threads which are dedicated to that purpose :

Third, node is faster than the browser on my tests, which at 0.5 to 1 ms is also meaningless. More importantly, it negates the premise of the question.

Answer 2

Beware that;

• the console.log timers and in generals timers in javascript are not quite precise

• there are more features on the node V8, like the fs

• I don't think that the UI has something to do with the V8

Answer 3

I can't answer the question; however, the other answers don't shed much light on the matter. See http://www.jsbenchmarks.com/?anywhichway/lookup/master/benchmark.js/ for an example of how NodeJS and browsers differ dramatically. Note, although the browser result son this site are from multiple visitors and the Node results are from a single server, tests in an isolated environment show the same thing.