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Chatbot Build & Runtime Benchmark Results

Benchmark comparing C (GCC and Clang, C17 and C23 standards) and Zig implementations.

System: macOS arm64
Date: 2026-01-12

Compiler Versions (Local)

Compiler Version
GCC (macOS) Apple Clang 17.0.0 (gcc is aliased to clang)
Clang Homebrew Clang 21.1.8
Zig 0.15.2

Runtime Results

Version Execution Time Relative
GCC C17 228ms 2.23x
GCC C23 102ms 1.00x (fastest)
Clang C17 107ms 1.04x
Clang C23 106ms 1.03x
Zig 628ms 6.15x

Binary Sizes

Version Size
GCC C17 33K
GCC C23 33K
Clang C17 33K
Clang C23 33K
Zig 1.3M

Analysis

C Compilers

  • GCC C23 was fastest in this run (times vary between runs)
  • Clang produces consistently fast binaries across C17/C23
  • On macOS, gcc is actually Apple Clang; real GCC is tested on CI (Ubuntu)

Zig

  • Slower due to:
    • GeneralPurposeAllocator overhead vs C's stack allocation
    • Zig 0.15 buffered I/O system overhead
    • Additional runtime safety checks
  • Much larger binary (embeds stdlib, no libc dependency)

Binary Size

  • All C versions: 33K (links against system libc)
    • Zig: 1.3M (self-contained, no external dependencies)

Build Configuration

Compiler Flags
GCC C17 gcc -std=c17 -Wall -Wextra -pedantic
GCC C23 gcc -std=c23 -Wall -Wextra -pedantic
Clang C17 clang -std=c17 -Wall -Wextra -pedantic
Clang C23 clang -std=c23 -Wall -Wextra -pedantic
Zig zig build (debug mode)

Notes

  • All versions produce identical output
  • C23 falls back to -std=c2x on older compilers
  • Times vary between runs; relative performance is more meaningful
  • CI tests both GCC and Clang on Ubuntu

Running the Benchmarks

# Full runtime benchmark (all compilers)
./run_benchmarks.sh

# Build-only benchmark
./benchmark.sh

# Show detected compilers
cd c && make info