Is PyInstaller runtime expected to be slower than native?

[matth65]

I'm comparing performance of a simple app packaged with PyInstaller with running the app with the native python interpreter. I'm find the PyInstaller package app runs slower overall compared to native Python.

Please see the simple app and results below. The PyInstaller packaged app runs about 50+ ms slower. Is this expected?

app.py

#!/usr/bin/env python3

import sys
import time

count = 1
x=34
start_time = time.time()
while count <= 2000000:
    x*x*x
    count += 1
end_time = time.time()
print(f"    Total Time: {round((end_time - start_time)* 1000)} ms")

sys.exit(0)

PyInstaller Build

$ python3 -m PyInstaller app.py
159 INFO: PyInstaller: 5.7.0
159 INFO: Python: 3.8.10
166 INFO: Platform: Linux-5.4.0-135-generic-x86_64-with-glibc2.29
166 INFO: wrote /home/user/test/pyinstaller/app.spec
168 INFO: UPX is not available.
168 INFO: Extending PYTHONPATH with paths
['/home/user/test/pyinstaller']
489 INFO: checking Analysis
489 INFO: Building Analysis because Analysis-00.toc is non existent
489 INFO: Initializing module dependency graph...
490 INFO: Caching module graph hooks...
496 INFO: Analyzing base_library.zip ...
1372 INFO: Loading module hook 'hook-heapq.py' from '/home/user/.local/lib/python3.8/site-packages/PyInstaller/hooks'...
1457 INFO: Loading module hook 'hook-encodings.py' from '/home/user/.local/lib/python3.8/site-packages/PyInstaller/hooks'...
2377 INFO: Loading module hook 'hook-pickle.py' from '/home/user/.local/lib/python3.8/site-packages/PyInstaller/hooks'...
3181 INFO: Caching module dependency graph...
3257 INFO: running Analysis Analysis-00.toc
3282 INFO: Analyzing /home/user/test/pyinstaller/app.py
3284 INFO: Processing module hooks...
3293 INFO: Looking for ctypes DLLs
3295 INFO: Analyzing run-time hooks ...
3298 INFO: Looking for dynamic libraries
3759 INFO: Looking for eggs
3759 INFO: Python library not in binary dependencies. Doing additional searching...
3839 INFO: Using Python library /usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libpython3.8.so.1.0
3842 INFO: Warnings written to /home/user/test/pyinstaller/build/app/warn-app.txt
3851 INFO: Graph cross-reference written to /home/user/test/pyinstaller/build/app/xref-app.html
3859 INFO: checking PYZ
3859 INFO: Building PYZ because PYZ-00.toc is non existent
3859 INFO: Building PYZ (ZlibArchive) /home/user/test/pyinstaller/build/app/PYZ-00.pyz
3983 INFO: Building PYZ (ZlibArchive) /home/user/test/pyinstaller/build/app/PYZ-00.pyz completed successfully.
3984 INFO: checking PKG
3984 INFO: Building PKG because PKG-00.toc is non existent
3984 INFO: Building PKG (CArchive) app.pkg
4002 INFO: Building PKG (CArchive) app.pkg completed successfully.
4002 INFO: Bootloader /home/user/.local/lib/python3.8/site-packages/PyInstaller/bootloader/Linux-64bit-intel/run
4002 INFO: checking EXE
4002 INFO: Building EXE because EXE-00.toc is non existent
4002 INFO: Building EXE from EXE-00.toc
4002 INFO: Copying bootloader EXE to /home/user/test/pyinstaller/build/app/app
4002 INFO: Appending PKG archive to custom ELF section in EXE
4007 INFO: Building EXE from EXE-00.toc completed successfully.
4008 INFO: checking COLLECT
4008 INFO: Building COLLECT because COLLECT-00.toc is non existent
4008 INFO: Building COLLECT COLLECT-00.toc
4019 INFO: Building COLLECT COLLECT-00.toc completed successfully.

Native Python Sample Results

$ python3 ./app.py 
    Total Time: 240 ms

PyInstaller Package Sample Results

$ ./dist/app/app 
    Total Time: 305 ms

[bwoodsend]

On Windows and mac, startup time will be heavily impeded by antiviruses and gate keeper. On Linux, I guess that initialisation may be slightly slower due to the application having to load its own copies of .so libraries rather taking advantage of the original system copies which are likely already loaded by another process.

Once the startup is done though, PyInstaller is out of the way. I wouldn't expect any change in performance.

FWIW, I'm not seeing any change between the two. If I run them 100 times each and take a mean, the frozen one is faster as often as it is slower.

[bwoodsend]

Possibly because Ubuntu's /usr/bin/python3 has the contents of what would normally go in libpython3.8.so statically linked in. That's a wild guess though.

[matth65]

Perhaps /usr/bin/python3 is compiled with different python optimizations vs. libpython. Is there a way to use the python3 application to invoke the code in the PyInstaller package?

[bwoodsend]

No chance

[matth65]

There's no option for statically linking against libpython3.8.a?

[bwoodsend]

No, and I really wouldn't want to add one.