Browser speed test

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A browser speed test is a computer benchmark to measure the performance of the JavaScript engine of a web browser. In general the software is available online, located on a website, where different algorithms are loaded and performed in the browser client. Typical test tasks are rendering and animation, DOM transformations, string operations, mathematical calculations, sorting algorithms, graphic performance tests and memory instructions. Browser speed tests have been used during browser wars to prove superiority of specific web browsers. The popular Acid3 test is no particular speed test but checks browser conformity to web standards (though it checks whether a general performance goal is met or not).

General tests[edit]


Online speed test by Futuremark, mainly using rendering, mathematical and memory operations. Takes approx. 5 minutes for execution and tells results of other browsers with different CPUs. Does not respect operating system.


Test of JavaScript engine using simple algorithms. Displays results of other visitors (best, average, poorest) with same operating system and browser version. Additional statistics page with browser ranking.


Microsoft maintains a suite of performance-oriented tests, often designed to test and stress JavaScript and rendering performance. These tests are typically designed to highlight IE's performance[citation needed], but are compatible with other major browsers.


Online speed test by Rightware, mainly using rendering, mathematical and memory operations. Takes approx. 4 minutes for execution and tells results compared to other browsers and operating systems.

3D tests[edit]

Wirple BMark[edit]

Performance test for HTML5 3D applications. Tests performance in both Canvas3D and WebGL.

Developer suites[edit]

ECMAScript Test 262[edit]

ECMA International is a standardization authority for JavaScript. test262 is a benchmark that composes enormous number of individual tests to test the conformance. The individual test in this suit is developed by member organizations of TC39, the technical committee tasked with standardization of the ECMAScript programming language.[1] Currently test262 suite comprises 10,000+ tests and yet under more tests are scheduled to be included in future.[2]


SunSpider is a benchmark suite that aims to measure JavaScript performance on tasks relevant to the current and near future use of JavaScript in the real world, such as encryption and text manipulation.[3] The suite further attempts to be balanced and statistically sound.[4]

Version 0.9 was released by the WebKit team in December 2007.[5] It was well received,[6] and other browser developers also use it to compare the JavaScript performance of different browsers.[7]

Version 0.9.1 was released in April 2010.[8]

Version 1.0 was released in April 2013.[9]


JavaScript test suite by Google, used to optimize Google Chrome web browser. Does not test rendering performance. Superseded by Google's Octane benchmark.


Google's JavaScript test suite which replaces the V8 benchmark. According to Google, "Octane v.1 consists of 138 tests, 57 new ones and 86 from the original V8 Benchmark Suite."[10]


Mozilla test suite based on SunSpider tests. Takes several minutes for execution and displays very detailed information about every single test task.


Another JavaScript test suite from Mozilla, released September 14, 2010.[11]

GUIMark 2[edit]

Tests vector, bitmap, and text rendering for both Adobe Flash and HTML5.




Tests JavaScript speed.


All browser tests deliver different results depending on the type and structure of testing and the focus of their measurement, though the tendency of results seems always to be the same. JavaScript and JavaScript engine speed in general are not the only criteria to evaluate the speed of a browser. Loading and rendering speed for a specific website via the Internet, memory consumption, hard disk storage consumption, start-up speed and so on should also be considered to rate the performance of a browser but are normally not included in online browser speed tests.


  1. ^ "ISO/IEC and Ecma International ratify "ES5.1", the latest ECMAScript specification of Ecma International". Reuters. 2011-06-30. Retrieved 4 July 2013. 
  2. ^ "What is the status of test262?". Retrieved 4 July 2013. 
  3. ^ Muchmore, Michael (2008-06-18). "Review: Firefox 3 Stays Ahead of Browser Pack". Fox News. Retrieved 2008-09-06. 
  4. ^ "SunSpider JavaScript Benchmark". Retrieved 15 February 2011. 
  5. ^ "Announcing SunSpider 0.9". 2007-12-18. Retrieved 2008-09-06. 
  6. ^ Atwood, Jeff (2007-12-19). "The Great Browser JavaScript Showdown". Retrieved 2008-09-06. 
  7. ^ Resig, John (2008-09-03). "JavaScript Performance Rundown". Retrieved 2008-06-09. 
  8. ^ "Surfin’ Safari - Blog Archive » Announcing SunSpider 0.9.1". 2010-04-07. Retrieved 2010-12-27. 
  9. ^ "Surfin’ Safari - Blog Archive » Announcing SunSpider 1.0". 2013-04-30. Retrieved 2013-04-30. 
  10. ^ "The Benchmark - Octane -Google Developers". Retrieved 2013-08-08.
  11. ^ "Release the Kraken". The Mozilla Blog. Retrieved 2013-08-08.

External links[edit]