Perform a JavaScript performance test using Dromaeo

With growing Web 2.0 web sites that use a lot of Ajax and and other JavaScript-based pages, there is also a natural need for more powerful browsers to handle such complex client side scripts. All web browsers come with their own implementation of a JavaScript engine.

According to the SunSpider JavaScript benchmark project, the JavaScript performance test focus on the kinds of actual problems developers solve with JavaScript today, and the problems they may want to tackle in the future as the language gets faster. This includes tests to generate a tag cloud from JSON input, a 3D ray tracer, cryptography tests, code decompression, and other technical examples that I could not elaborate here.

Dromaeo is one of the popular testing services today. To perform a test, go to http://dromaeo.com then click the run button:

Visiting the main Dromaeo page you are given a collection of tests which can be run. Generally these tests are designed to be more “real world” in nature (testing a number of features simultaneously). Each test should have a full description explaining what the test is achieving along with an indication of what is being tested.

If you don’t wish to run all of the available tests, and only run a sub-section of them, you can filter tests via the URL:

3D tests: http://v2.dromaeo.com/?3d

String related tests: http://v2.dromaeo.com/?string

You can mix more than one test by using regular expression manipulations like below:

http://v2.dromaeo.com/?(3d|string)

Once you test is completed you will receive a unique id that you can use to compare with tests from other users.

Try it! See if your browser is faster than my Firefox 3 running on Windows 7. Once you are done running the tests, compare the numbers with mine: http://dromaeo.com/?id=66654

Obviously this is intended for more advanced benchmarking purposes. It allows browser and web developers to measure performances of certain JavaScript techniques. It also lets hobbyists to have a numeric indicator of how fast their newly installed browsers really are.