Serialization Jackson vs. Boon vs. Java Serialization

Most people assume that Java object serialization is faster than Jackson JSON serialization because Jackson is using JSON and Java object serialization is binary. But most people are wrong.

Jackson JSON serialization is much faster than built in Java object serialization.

Boon JSON serialization is much faster than Jackson JSON serialization.

java -jar target/microbenchmarks.jar ".*serialization.*" -wi 2 -i 3 -f 2 -t 16 

Boon 14 snapshot

Testing the Jackson and Boon JSON serializers vs. Java Object serialization.

i.g.j.s.MainBoonSerializer.roundTripBig              thrpt  16         6    1      101.708       11.041    ops/s
i.g.j.s.MainJavaSerialization.roundTripBig           thrpt  16         6    1       91.339        4.354    ops/s
i.g.j.s.MainJacksonSerializer.roundTripBig           thrpt  16         6    1       76.406        2.671    ops/s

Boon wins by 30%. Jackson comes in third. Boon beats Java binary serialization. :)

i.g.j.s.MainBoonSerializer.serializeBig              thrpt  16         6    1      377.694       20.544    ops/s
i.g.j.s.MainJavaSerialization.serializeBig           thrpt  16         6    1      174.208       23.116    ops/s
i.g.j.s.MainJacksonSerializer.serializeBig           thrpt  16         6    1      186.008       16.769    ops/s

Boon wins by 2x.

i.g.j.s.MainBoonSerializer.roundTriper               thrpt  16         6    1   312390.819    57581.454    ops/s
i.g.j.s.MainJacksonSerializer.roundTriper            thrpt  16         6    1   218978.594    44249.526    ops/s
i.g.j.s.MainJavaSerialization.roundTriper            thrpt  16         6    1    47756.764    59303.464    ops/s

Both Boon and Jackson kill Java serialization. Boon also kills Jackson serialization round trip.

i.g.j.s.MainBoonSerializer.serializeSmall            thrpt  16         6    1   936352.708   137569.222    ops/s
i.g.j.s.MainJacksonSerializer.serializeSmall         thrpt  16         6    1   636723.378    31346.173    ops/s
i.g.j.s.MainJavaSerialization.serializeSmall         thrpt  16         6    1   382283.631    25397.336    ops/s

Boon wins by a 30% margin. Jackson comes in second. Both demolish Java built-in serialization.

I recently added some optimizations to Boon JSON serialization 15 (still in snapshot). Let's see what it does to performance.

Benchmark                                        Mode Thr     Count  Sec         Mean   Mean error    Units
i.g.j.s.MainBoonSerializer.serializeSmall       thrpt  16         6    1   928002.808    60950.051    ops/s
i.g.j.s.MainJacksonSerializer.serializeSmall    thrpt  16         6    1   611743.833    79255.225    ops/s
i.g.j.s.MainJavaSerialization.serializeSmall    thrpt  16         6    1   379509.836    14233.369    ops/s

About the same.

i.g.j.s.MainBoonSerializer.roundTripBig         thrpt  16         6    1       96.589       34.860    ops/s
i.g.j.s.MainJavaSerialization.roundTripBig      thrpt  16         6    1       87.097        8.706    ops/s
i.g.j.s.MainJacksonSerializer.roundTripBig      thrpt  16         6    1       78.378        9.286    ops/s

About the same.

i.g.j.s.MainBoonSerializer.roundTriper          thrpt  16         6    1   303601.772    67861.688    ops/s
i.g.j.s.MainJacksonSerializer.roundTriper       thrpt  16         6    1   206512.825     9533.699    ops/s
i.g.j.s.MainJavaSerialization.roundTriper       thrpt  16         6    1    42197.833    60428.583    ops/s

About the same.

i.g.j.s.MainBoonSerializer.serializeBig         thrpt  16         6    1      356.867       28.637    ops/s
i.g.j.s.MainJacksonSerializer.serializeBig      thrpt  16         6    1      173.494       24.818    ops/s
i.g.j.s.MainJavaSerialization.serializeBig      thrpt  16         6    1      163.283       23.345    ops/s

About the same as before.

In short. Jackson is very fast. Boon is faster. And my latest rounds of optimizations did nothing. :(

Ok.. So I heard a lot about FastJson. https://github.com/alibaba/fastjson/wiki/_pages https://github.com/RuedigerMoeller/fast-serialization/wiki/TestPage Time to pony up to the bar and see how fast FastJSON is....

Round 1.

i.g.j.s.MainBoonSerializer.roundTripBig          thrpt  16         3    1      109.539      180.206    ops/s
i.g.j.s.MainFastJsonSerializer.roundTripBig      thrpt  16         3    1       77.767      442.537    ops/s

FastJSON comes out swinging. Boon lands a solid punch on the chin send FastJSON back a few steps and FastJSON wonders what just hit him.

Round 2:

i.g.j.s.MainBoonSerializer.roundTriper           thrpt  16         3    1   322589.867   263964.706    ops/s
i.g.j.s.MainFastJsonSerializer.roundTriper       thrpt  16         3    1   372651.528    60503.278    ops/s

Photo finish, but Boon comes out swinging hard, and FastJSON eeks out a small victory. Time to fire up yourKit and VisualVM.

Round 3

i.g.j.s.MainBoonSerializer.serializeBig          thrpt  16         3    1      386.978       52.936    ops/s
i.g.j.s.MainFastJsonSerializer.serializeBig      thrpt  16         3    1      143.339      130.480    ops/s

Boon body slams FastJSON. Don't call it a come back. Do you smell what the Boon has been cooking?!

Round 4

i.g.j.s.MainBoonSerializer.serializeSmall        thrpt  16         3    1   970575.272    34411.444    ops/s
i.g.j.s.MainFastJsonSerializer.serializeSmall    thrpt  16         3    1   784787.311    85672.955    ops/s

Sonic Boon! Allyoucan! Triple twirling punch to the chin. The new world champion in Java JSON serialization. The crowd roars.