process.nextTick vs setTimeout(fn, 0)

nextTick.js

for (var i = 0; i < 1024 * 1024; i++) {
  process.nextTick(function () { Math.sqrt(i) } )
}

results.md

Results

Intel i7 890 @ 2.93 GHz x64, node compiled with -march=native -mtune=native:

$ time node nextTick.js 

real	0m0.344s
user	0m0.276s
sys 	0m0.067s

$ time node setTimeout.js 

real	0m9.125s
user	0m8.707s
sys 	0m0.410s

Feel free to fork and add your results!

setTimeout.js

for (var i = 0; i < 1024 * 1024; i++) {
  setTimeout(function () { Math.sqrt(i) }, 0)
}

RAM 8G
core 2

time node nexttick.js
real	0m0.863s
user	0m0.795s
sys	0m0.089s

time node timeoutqps.js
real	0m1.084s
user	0m0.978s
sys	0m0.111s

Darwin Kernel Version 16.3.0: Thu Nov 17 20:23:58 PST 2016; root:xnu-3789.31.2~1/RELEASE_X86_64 x86_64

node v7.2.0

node nextTick.js 0.62s user 0.12s system 99% cpu 0.747 total

node setTimeout.js 0.70s user 0.11s system 98% cpu 0.821 total

@IngwiePhoenix The explanation is here: https://nodejs.org/en/docs/guides/event-loop-timers-and-nexttick/#process-nexttick-vs-setimmediate

process.nextTick() allows you to "starve" your I/O events. setImmediate is safer.

$ uname -a
Darwin MacBook-Pro.local 18.7.0 Darwin Kernel Version 18.7.0: Tue Aug 20 16:57:14 PDT 2019; root:xnu-4903.271.2~2/RELEASE_X86_64 x86_64

$ node -v
v12.11.1

$ time node nextTick.js 
node nextTick.js  0.52s user 0.12s system 189% cpu 0.338 total

$ time node setTimeout.js 
node setTimeout.js  1.09s user 0.12s system 128% cpu 0.938 total

on ubuntu virtual machine

time node nextTick.js

real	0m0.669s
user	0m0.487s
sys	0m0.357s


time node setTimeout.js

real	0m1.513s
user	0m1.709s
sys	0m0.090s