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Compression level 12

Benchmark index · Median overview · ← Level 11 · Level 13 →

Recorded run: long-20261109 (2026-11-09). Raw results · Environment · Run analysis.

Median across all datasets

Each of the 8 datasets has equal weight, including empty and tiny input. Speed / C = C mean latency / implementation mean latency; output / C = implementation bytes / C bytes. We take the median of these 8 per-dataset ratios separately for speed and size. 1× matches C; higher speed and lower output are better. These are medians across datasets, not median sample latencies, and do not imply statistical significance.

ImplementationMedian speed / C ↑Median output / C ↓Datasets
zstd C1.000×1.000×8
mzstd1.184×1.000×8
Measurement setup and interpretation

zstd 1.5.7 (the C library built by zstd-ffi) and mzstd at the recorded working tree compress identical bytes at this level. Every frame was checked byte-identical to zstd’s and decoded back to its input before any timing.

These are cold native API measurements: construction, allocation, compression, and disposal. Complete known input; 50 samples, 3 s warmup, at least 6 s measurement. Host: AMD Ryzen 9 7950X, Linux KVM guest with two vCPUs: the encoder suite, then the decoder suite, each in one Criterion process pinned to vCPU 1; nothing else ran in the guest. Other tenants loaded the host: a fixed C decode varied by 8-43% (p10-p90 wall time) through the day, so sampling was lengthened to average over the noise. unset; Cargo release defaults (bench profile), runtime SIMD dispatch (AVX-512 level on this host; the decoder runs its block loops at the AVX2 level).

Chart whiskers and table intervals describe 95% confidence bounds on mean timing. They do not capture all host or allocator variation. Throughput bounds are transformed latency bounds. Output / input is compressed bytes divided by input bytes; smaller is better, and values above 100% mean expansion. For empty input, throughput and output / input are undefined (—). See the run analysis for measurement limitations.

Dataset details

Ordered by mzstd speed / C, highest first; all 8 datasets are shown. This order uses recorded mean latency, not statistical significance. Bars start at zero.

empty · repeated-1m · tiny-text · binary-64k · random-64k · random-1m · text-1m · alice29

empty

Empty input; measures API overhead. Input: 0 bytes.

mzstd speed / C: 6.807×; output: 9 / 9 bytes.

Exact measurements and confidence bounds
ImplementationMean, ns95% mean interval, nsMiB/sOutput bytesOutput / inputSpeed / C
zstd C2,1992,186–2,215—9—1.000×
mzstd323.1319.3–328.1—9—6.807×

repeated-1m

1 MiB of repeated a bytes. Input: 1,048,576 bytes.

mzstd speed / C: 2.238×; output: 49 / 49 bytes.

Exact measurements and confidence bounds
ImplementationMean, µs95% mean interval, µsMiB/sOutput bytesOutput / inputSpeed / C
zstd C603.4591.2–619.11,657.14490.005%1.000×
mzstd269.6264.7–275.23,709.16490.005%2.238×

tiny-text

44-byte quick-brown-fox sentence. Input: 44 bytes.

mzstd speed / C: 1.893×; output: 53 / 53 bytes.

Exact measurements and confidence bounds
ImplementationMean, µs95% mean interval, µsMiB/sOutput bytesOutput / inputSpeed / C
zstd C4.1924.093–4.30710.0153120.455%1.000×
mzstd2.2142.161–2.27618.9553120.455%1.893×

binary-64k

64 KiB of structured binary bytes: ((i / 16) XOR i) modulo 256. Input: 65,536 bytes.

mzstd speed / C: 1.271×; output: 1,276 / 1,276 bytes.

Exact measurements and confidence bounds
ImplementationMean, µs95% mean interval, µsMiB/sOutput bytesOutput / inputSpeed / C
zstd C34.0232.76–35.461,837.291,2761.947%1.000×
mzstd26.7725.85–27.812,334.991,2761.947%1.271×

random-64k

64 KiB prefix of the deterministic pseudorandom corpus. Input: 65,536 bytes.

mzstd speed / C: 1.097×; output: 65,546 / 65,546 bytes.

Exact measurements and confidence bounds
ImplementationMean, µs95% mean interval, µsMiB/sOutput bytesOutput / inputSpeed / C
zstd C96.4191.85–101.3648.2565,546100.015%1.000×
mzstd87.8683.48–92.68711.3965,546100.015%1.097×

random-1m

1 MiB of deterministic xorshift64 pseudorandom bytes. Input: 1,048,576 bytes.

mzstd speed / C: 1.091×; output: 1,048,609 / 1,048,609 bytes.

Exact measurements and confidence bounds
ImplementationMean, µs95% mean interval, µsMiB/sOutput bytesOutput / inputSpeed / C
zstd C458.6443.3–474.32,180.511,048,609100.003%1.000×
mzstd420.4410.5–4302,378.651,048,609100.003%1.091×

text-1m

Alice text repeated cyclically to 1 MiB. Input: 1,048,576 bytes.

mzstd speed / C: 1.080×; output: 52,034 / 52,034 bytes.

Exact measurements and confidence bounds
ImplementationMean, µs95% mean interval, µsMiB/sOutput bytesOutput / inputSpeed / C
zstd C4,0153,897–4,130249.0752,0344.962%1.000×
mzstd3,7173,586–3,845269.0752,0344.962%1.080×

alice29

Alice in Wonderland text from the Canterbury corpus (testdata/alice29.txt). Input: 152,089 bytes.

mzstd speed / C: 0.880×; output: 51,492 / 51,492 bytes.

Exact measurements and confidence bounds
ImplementationMean, µs95% mean interval, µsMiB/sOutput bytesOutput / inputSpeed / C
zstd C6,9516,847–7,06520.8751,49233.856%1.000×
mzstd7,8967,758–8,03718.3751,49233.856%0.880×