Benchmarks of Go serialization methods

This is a test suite for benchmarking various Go serialization methods.

Tested serialization methods

• encoding/gob
• encoding/json
• github.com/json-iterator/go
• github.com/alecthomas/binary
• github.com/davecgh/go-xdr/xdr
• github.com/Sereal/Sereal/Go/sereal
• github.com/ugorji/go/codec
• gopkg.in/vmihailenco/msgpack.v2
• labix.org/v2/mgo/bson
• github.com/tinylib/msgp (code generator for msgpack)
• github.com/golang/protobuf (generated code)
• github.com/gogo/protobuf (generated code, optimized version of goprotobuf)
• github.com/DeDiS/protobuf (reflection based)
• github.com/google/flatbuffers
• github.com/hprose/hprose-go/io
• github.com/glycerine/go-capnproto
• zombiezen.com/go/capnproto2
• github.com/andyleap/gencode
• github.com/pascaldekloe/colfer
• github.com/linkedin/goavro
• github.com/ikkerens/ikeapack

Running the benchmarks

go get -u -t
go test -bench='.*' ./

Shameless plug: I use pawk to format the table:

go test -bench='.*' ./ | pawk -F'\t' '"%-40s %10s %10s %s %s" % f'

Recommendation

If performance, correctness and interoperability are the most important factors, gogoprotobuf is currently the best choice. It does require a pre-processing step (eg. via Go 1.4's "go generate" command).

But as always, make your own choice based on your requirements.

Data

The data being serialized is the following structure with randomly generated values:

type A struct {
    Name     string
    BirthDay time.Time
    Phone    string
    Siblings int
    Spouse   bool
    Money    float64
}

Results

2018-07-20 Results with Go 1.10.3 on a 2.5 GHz Intel Core i7 MacBook Pro (Retina, 15-inch, Mid 2015):

benchmark                                   iter              time/iter         bytes alloc    allocs
---------                                   ----              ---------         -----------    ------
BenchmarkMsgpMarshal-8                      10000000        159 ns/op      128 B/op        1 allocs/op
BenchmarkMsgpUnmarshal-8                     5000000        303 ns/op      112 B/op        3 allocs/op
BenchmarkVmihailencoMsgpackMarshal-8         1000000       1688 ns/op      368 B/op        6 allocs/op
BenchmarkVmihailencoMsgpackUnmarshal-8       1000000       1775 ns/op      384 B/op       13 allocs/op
BenchmarkJsonMarshal-8                        500000       2746 ns/op     1224 B/op        9 allocs/op
BenchmarkJsonUnmarshal-8                      500000       2778 ns/op      463 B/op        7 allocs/op
BenchmarkJsonIterMarshal-8                   1000000       1538 ns/op      952 B/op        7 allocs/op
BenchmarkJsonIterUnmarshal-8                  500000       2399 ns/op      447 B/op       14 allocs/op
BenchmarkEasyJsonMarshal-8                   1000000       1211 ns/op      784 B/op        5 allocs/op
BenchmarkEasyJsonUnmarshal-8                 1000000       1265 ns/op      160 B/op        4 allocs/op
BenchmarkBsonMarshal-8                       1000000       1537 ns/op      392 B/op       10 allocs/op
BenchmarkBsonUnmarshal-8                     1000000       1679 ns/op      244 B/op       19 allocs/op
BenchmarkGobMarshal-8                        2000000        841 ns/op       48 B/op        2 allocs/op
BenchmarkGobUnmarshal-8                      2000000        835 ns/op      112 B/op        3 allocs/op
BenchmarkXdrMarshal-8                        1000000       1509 ns/op      456 B/op       21 allocs/op
BenchmarkXdrUnmarshal-8                      1000000       1282 ns/op      239 B/op       11 allocs/op
BenchmarkUgorjiCodecMsgpackMarshal-8         2000000        962 ns/op      561 B/op        6 allocs/op
BenchmarkUgorjiCodecMsgpackUnmarshal-8       1000000       1170 ns/op      449 B/op        6 allocs/op
BenchmarkUgorjiCodecBincMarshal-8            1000000       1039 ns/op      577 B/op        7 allocs/op
BenchmarkUgorjiCodecBincUnmarshal-8          1000000       1352 ns/op      657 B/op        9 allocs/op
BenchmarkSerealMarshal-8                      500000       2517 ns/op      912 B/op       21 allocs/op
BenchmarkSerealUnmarshal-8                    500000       2620 ns/op     1008 B/op       34 allocs/op
BenchmarkBinaryMarshal-8                     1000000       1399 ns/op      334 B/op       20 allocs/op
BenchmarkBinaryUnmarshal-8                   1000000       1443 ns/op      336 B/op       22 allocs/op
BenchmarkFlatBuffersMarshal-8                5000000        346 ns/op        0 B/op        0 allocs/op
BenchmarkFlatBuffersUnmarshal-8             10000000        230 ns/op      112 B/op        3 allocs/op
BenchmarkCapNProtoMarshal-8                  3000000        451 ns/op       56 B/op        2 allocs/op
BenchmarkCapNProtoUnmarshal-8                5000000        385 ns/op      200 B/op        6 allocs/op
BenchmarkCapNProto2Marshal-8                 1000000       1029 ns/op      244 B/op        3 allocs/op
BenchmarkCapNProto2Unmarshal-8               1000000       1143 ns/op      320 B/op        6 allocs/op
BenchmarkHproseMarshal-8                     1000000       1160 ns/op      475 B/op        8 allocs/op
BenchmarkHproseUnmarshal-8                   1000000       1079 ns/op      319 B/op       10 allocs/op
BenchmarkHprose2Marshal-8                    3000000        553 ns/op        0 B/op        0 allocs/op
BenchmarkHprose2Unmarshal-8                  3000000        511 ns/op      144 B/op        4 allocs/op
BenchmarkProtobufMarshal-8                   2000000        870 ns/op      200 B/op        7 allocs/op
BenchmarkProtobufUnmarshal-8                 2000000        748 ns/op      192 B/op       10 allocs/op
BenchmarkGoprotobufMarshal-8                 5000000        392 ns/op       96 B/op        2 allocs/op
BenchmarkGoprotobufUnmarshal-8               3000000        566 ns/op      200 B/op       10 allocs/op
BenchmarkGogoprotobufMarshal-8              10000000        145 ns/op       64 B/op        1 allocs/op
BenchmarkGogoprotobufUnmarshal-8            10000000        208 ns/op       96 B/op        3 allocs/op
BenchmarkColferMarshal-8                    10000000        119 ns/op       64 B/op        1 allocs/op
BenchmarkColferUnmarshal-8                  10000000        163 ns/op      112 B/op        3 allocs/op
BenchmarkGencodeMarshal-8                   10000000        152 ns/op       80 B/op        2 allocs/op
BenchmarkGencodeUnmarshal-8                 10000000        165 ns/op      112 B/op        3 allocs/op
BenchmarkGencodeUnsafeMarshal-8             20000000         96.7 ns/op       48 B/op        1 allocs/op
BenchmarkGencodeUnsafeUnmarshal-8           10000000        129 ns/op       96 B/op        3 allocs/op
BenchmarkXDR2Marshal-8                      10000000        148 ns/op       64 B/op        1 allocs/op
BenchmarkXDR2Unmarshal-8                    10000000        134 ns/op       32 B/op        2 allocs/op
BenchmarkGoAvroMarshal-8                      500000       2810 ns/op     1030 B/op       31 allocs/op
BenchmarkGoAvroUnmarshal-8                    200000       6989 ns/op     3436 B/op       87 allocs/op
BenchmarkGoAvro2TextMarshal-8                 500000       2474 ns/op     1326 B/op       20 allocs/op
BenchmarkGoAvro2TextUnmarshal-8               500000       2367 ns/op      807 B/op       34 allocs/op
BenchmarkGoAvro2BinaryMarshal-8              2000000        783 ns/op      510 B/op       11 allocs/op
BenchmarkGoAvro2BinaryUnmarshal-8            2000000        838 ns/op      576 B/op       13 allocs/op
BenchmarkIkeaMarshal-8                       3000000        571 ns/op       72 B/op        8 allocs/op
BenchmarkIkeaUnmarshal-8                     2000000        749 ns/op      160 B/op       11 allocs/op

Issues

The benchmarks can also be run with validation enabled.

VALIDATE=1 go test -bench='.*' ./

Unfortunately, several of the serializers exhibit issues:

1. (minor) BSON drops sub-microsecond precision from time.Time.
2. (minor) Ugorji Binc Codec drops the timezone name (eg. "EST" -> "-0500") from time.Time.

--- FAIL: BenchmarkBsonUnmarshal-8
    serialization_benchmarks_test.go:115: unmarshaled object differed:
        &{20b999e3621bd773 2016-01-19 14:05:02.469416459 -0800 PST f017c8e9de 4 true 0.20887343719329818}
        &{20b999e3621bd773 2016-01-19 14:05:02.469 -0800 PST f017c8e9de 4 true 0.20887343719329818}
--- FAIL: BenchmarkUgorjiCodecBincUnmarshal-8
    serialization_benchmarks_test.go:115: unmarshaled object differed:
        &{20a1757ced6b488e 2016-01-19 14:05:15.69474534 -0800 PST 71f3bf4233 0 false 0.8712180830484527}
        &{20a1757ced6b488e 2016-01-19 14:05:15.69474534 -0800 -0800 71f3bf4233 0 false 0.8712180830484527}

All other fields are correct however.

Additionally, while not a correctness issue, FlatBuffers, ProtoBuffers, Cap'N'Proto and ikeapack do not support time types directly. In the benchmarks an int64 value is used to hold a UnixNano timestamp.