Here I test the speed of autotools, the configure time and the compile time.
The tests are run on Freebsd 12 on an Odroid H2+, using /usr/ports. I run make fetch-recursive and make config-recursive before timing the results.
The time is messured using time.
| Program | size | configure (make configure) | compile (make) |
|---|---|---|---|
| bsftpd | medium | 21.61s user 5.23s system 102% cpu 26.272 total | 2.72s user 0.51s system 254% cpu 1.268 total |
| pftpd | small | 2.07s user 2.28s system 97% cpu 4.442 total | 0.77s user 0.31s system 96% cpu 1.115 total |
| wget | medium | 9.70s user 6.67s system 75% cpu 21.587 total | 1.98s user 1.62s system 147% cpu 2.448 total |
The conclusion is that you should never use autotools for your projects.
License of this document. CC BY-ND 4.0