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Comment by fabiospampinato | Hacker News Reader

I'd like to see how it performs in js-framework-benchmark. That it's faster than emotion or styled-components don't really mean anything when comparing the frameworks themselves, and much faster css-in-js solutions can be written for any framework basically.

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There’s benchmarks and code example both on this post and on the rest of the site showing this, the tree flattening is novel and what really makes a huge difference. On the site homepage it fully removes over 600 components from having to render at all.

https://tamagui.dev/docs/intro/benchmarks

Thanks for the link, interesting. I'd still recommend making a submission for js-framework-benchmark, otherwise it's kinda like preact signals, where the performance aspect of them is kind of a marketing aspect really, and they don't actually improve the score much at all in js-framework-benchmark, hence, presumably, why they haven't submitted an implementation yet. The more data the fewer doubts.

The standard benchmark mentioned (krausest) is for JS frameworks. But Tamagui is not a framework. (It uses React as the framework on web, so would have similar perfomance to that in krausest.)

Tamagui is a style and component library (plus optimizing compiler). Do you know of any standard benchmarks for any of those?

Ok, but then I don't understand the claim that it's faster than React while using React. I don't know of any more specific and good benchmarks for that.

Oh, that’s just mostly (afaik) the result of the tree flattening it does being an optimization of React, because it gives React less to handle in the first place. That’s why benchmarking framework render operations like krausest does doesn’t really apply. Because it is a nano benchmark of individual operations on the tree, not the size of it. You’d need a macro benchmark on a real world app to measure gains from reducing the DOM tree size. That would be very app-specific, and so the gains from that would also be very specific to how the app was designed. The closest you could get (that I’ve seen) is these micro benchmarks on a small custom DOM tree: https://tamagui.dev/docs/intro/benchmarks

> There’s benchmarks and code example both on this post and on the rest of the site showing this (...)

I feel this sort of approach lacks honesty and fails to be objective. Anyone can cherry-pick a customized test where their stuff comes out as the best of class, no matter how underperforming it is.

To have a proper apples-to-apples comparison, standard benchmarks are the way to go. Everything else sounds like snake oil and hand-waving.

You, above:

>> Basically it’s hard to be fully precise, (...)

> Not really. Just put together a benchmark and let it speak for itself.

You seem a little bit split on this one :) Yes, creating a fair benchmark is hard. Yes, it's hard to get other people to evaluate their things using your benchmark. Yes, it's hard to do an apples-to-apples comparison.

> You seem a little bit split on this one :)

Not really. By "putting up a benchmark" I mean an objective and verifiable standard set of performance tests that everyone interested can contribute their best effort.

I means nothing if you roll out a cherry-picked ad-hoc test that compares a corner case of your best effort to a half-assed underperforming implementation of a competitor you chose because it suits you best.

There are standard benchmarks out there, which were already mentioned in this discussion. It takes virtually no effort to roll out Tamagui's best effort. Not using those actually requires more effort than using them, which casts doubt over the validity of self-serving cherry-picked ad-hoc tests.

The benchmarks are open source and adopted from competitor libraries, standard tests that style libraries have used for a long time. Nothing deceptive.

The other benchmark posted tests more framework level stuff, but could be repurposed to show a more “typical app screen” with some effort.

The standard benchmark mentioned (krausest) is for JS frameworks. But Tamagui is not a framework. (It uses React as the framework on web, so would have similar perfomance to that in krausest.)

Tamagui is a style and component library (plus optimizing compiler). Do you know of any standard benchmarks for any of those?

There's no such thing as a standard benchmark, but I benchmarked 8 different setups using benchmark source from two competitor libraries. If you have a better idea let me know.

In the ideal you'd have to benchmark a heavy screen that you'd have to write for every competitor, and then provide timings across many different facets - initial load, runtime, total time, window resize, etc. As far as I know no one does that for anything, even backend stuff as it's just too much effort (even the TechEmpower benchmarks are micro and not like this).

If anything though Tamagui will look even better there. I've open sourced the results, re-used benchmarks from rival libraries, shown my work, and even published the 3 benchmarks that don't do as well for Tamagui. It's as Apples-to-Apples as it gets and it's not measuring anything weird this is straightforward stuff.

> There's no such thing as a standard benchmark

There actually is for web frameworks https://github.com/krausest/js-framework-benchmark

Almost but not quite true same. Rendering a typical app screen is probably the “right” ACID test, this is testing something very different - insert/remove row etc.

I’d love to make a benchmark someday despite my bias, maybe just a profile page or feed or something generic, and could have side tests for animations, theme changes, responsive styles, and logical styles. Those are the key areas for a style library. Tamagui is actually 10x or more at a few of them.

I think he meant there’s no standardized benchmark for styling and component libraries, or optimizing compilers, all of which Tamagui are. (Tamagui isn’t a framework, so wouldn’t fit into krausest benchmark, as you know).

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