PHP JSON Patch Benchmarks

This repository provides benchmarks for various PHP libraries that implement the JSON Patch standard (RFC 6902).
JSON Patch is a format for describing changes to a JSON document, and there are multiple PHP implementations available.
This project aims to compare their performance and functionality.

Libraries Tested

The following PHP JSON Patch libraries are included in the benchmark:

1. blancks/fast-jsonpatch-php
2. mikemccabe/json-patch-php
3. php-jsonpatch/php-jsonpatch
4. xp-forge/json-patch
5. gamringer/php-json-patch
6. swaggest/json-diff
7. remorhaz/php-json-patch

Benchmark Methodology

• The benchmark is designed to measure the performance of each library in applying JSON patches regardless of target document size.
• An automated test suite will be run before the actual benchmark to check if the library correctly implements the RFC.
• Document and patch content is fixed in order to benchmark any additional memory required by the class itself to perform the patch.
• With the standard config, each test benchmarks the application of patches up until 1000 operations size
• Each of the six patch operations is iterated sequentially during the test
• Each benchmark test runs the patch application multiple times to minimize the effects of transient system states. The average execution time is then calculated.

Environment

The benchmarks were executed on the following system:

• PHP Version: 8.2.2-nts
• Operating System: Windows 10 Professional
• Memory: 32GB RAM (4 x 8 GB) 3600 MT/s C18
• Processor: Ryzen 7 3700x

RFC 6902 Compliance Test Results

The compliance test strictly checks if the output json of each library is consistent with the RFC and if the library performs atomic operations.

Library / Status	Version
	v2.0
	v0.6.1
	dev-master
	v4.1.0
	v2.1.0
	v1.0
	v3.11.0

mikemccabe and xp-forge libraries implicitly converts objects into arrays and while this make the compliace test fail it is still fine if you only have to consume the document in PHP

Libraries that fails this test will be benchmarked as well if no error occurs

Benchmark Results

The following table shows the average time each library took to apply a patch with 1000 operations to a target document as summary of the performance. The actual benchmark data is available here.

Library (fully RFC compliant only)	Microseconds
blancks/fast-jsonpatch-php	4511
remorhaz/php-json-patch	870711

Library (others)	Microseconds
mikemccabe/json-patch-php	3355
swaggest/json-diff	3638
gamringer/php-json-patch	7276
xp-forge/json-patch	8534
php-jsonpatch/php-jsonpatch	10970

These results are indicative and may vary depending on the specific use case and system environment.

How to Run the Benchmarks

To run the benchmarks yourself, clone this repository and install the dependencies using Composer:

git clone https://github.com/blancks/php-jsonpatch-benchmarks
cd php-jsonpatch-benchmarks
composer install

Then, you can execute the benchmark script:

php jpbench [library]

[library] may be one of the following:

• blancks_fast-jsonpatch
• gamringer_php-json-patch
• mikemccabe_json-patch-php
• php-jsonpatch_php-jsonpatch
• remorhaz_php_json_patch
• swaggest_json-diff
• xp-forge_json-patch

for example:

php jpbench blancks_fast-jsonpatch

Benchmark Configuration

Benchmark configuration is located at ./src/config.php
The following constants are available to customize the benchmark behavior:

• THREADS the number of concurrent processes to spawn.
  The benchmark is CPU intensive, do not put a value here higher than your processor logical cores

• MAX_PATCHSIZE the maximum number of operations for a single patch to benchmark

• ITERATIONS_PER_PATCH how many times each patch size is benchmarked before moving to the next

• PATCH_NESTED_LEVEL the number of tokens of the JSON pointer for each patch operation

• OUTPUT_FOLDER folder where the benchmark results will be stored

Contributing

Contributions are welcome! If you know of another JSON Patch library that should be included in these benchmarks or have suggestions for improving the benchmarking process, please open an issue or submit a pull request.

Acknowledgements

Special thanks to the authors of the JSON Patch libraries tested in this benchmark.

License

This software is licensed under the MIT License.