---
title: "Performance"
description: >
  This page presents performance benchmarks for Panache, comparing its formatting
  speed against popular alternatives like Prettier and Pandoc on real Quarto
  documents. The benchmarks highlight Panache's efficiency and suitability for
  on-save formatting in editors.
---

## Overview

**panache** is designed for speed without compromising on correctness. Built in
Rust and compiled to native code, it delivers fast formatting with zero startup
overhead.

## Benchmark Results

Benchmarks compare panache against popular markdown formatters on real Quarto
documents.

::: {.callout-note}
**Test Environment** - CPU: Modern x86_64 processor - panache: v2.7.0 (Rust,
native binary) - Prettier: v3.6.2 (Node.js) - Pandoc: v3.7.0.2 (Haskell, native
binary) - Documents: Real Quarto files from quarto-dev/quarto-web
:::

### Small Document (747 bytes)

  | Formatter   | Time (ms) | vs panache   |
  | ----------- | --------- | ------------ |
  | **panache** | **4.1**   | baseline     |
  | Prettier    | 71.8      | 17.7x slower |
  | Pandoc      | 10.0      | 2.5x slower  |

### Medium Document (9 KB)

  | Formatter   | Time (ms) | vs panache   |
  | ----------- | --------- | ------------ |
  | **panache** | **8.7**   | baseline     |
  | Prettier    | 105.0     | 12.1x slower |
  | Pandoc      | 32.5      | 3.8x slower  |

### Tables Document (19 KB)

  | Formatter   | Time (ms) | vs panache   |
  | ----------- | --------- | ------------ |
  | **panache** | **8.5**   | baseline     |
  | Prettier    | 131.5     | 15.5x slower |
  | Pandoc      | 60.0      | 7.1x slower  |

### Math Document (29 KB)

  | Formatter   | Time (ms) | vs panache   |
  | ----------- | --------- | ------------ |
  | **panache** | **8.7**   | baseline     |
  | Prettier    | 143.7     | 16.4x slower |
  | Pandoc      | 48.1      | 5.5x slower  |

### Large Document (30 KB)

  | Formatter   | Time (ms) | vs panache   |
  | ----------- | --------- | ------------ |
  | **panache** | **5.8**   | baseline     |
  | Prettier    | 133.9     | 23.0x slower |
  | Pandoc      | 56.6      | 9.7x slower  |

## Key Takeaways

### 🚀 Faster Than Alternatives

- **12-23x faster than Prettier** - Zero Node.js startup overhead
- **2.5-10x faster than Pandoc** - Optimized for formatting (Pandoc is
  general-purpose)
- **Sub-10ms formatting** - Imperceptible latency for on-save formatting

### ⚡ Consistent Performance

panache maintains consistent \~8-9ms formatting time across document sizes (9-30
KB), suggesting excellent algorithmic efficiency. The parser and formatter scale
well.

### 💪 Why So Fast?

1. **Native compilation** - Rust compiles to machine code, no interpreter
   overhead
2. **Zero startup time** - Unlike Node.js/JVM-based tools
3. **Efficient parsing** - Single-pass parser with integrated inline handling
4. **Optimized data structures** - Lossless CST built with `rowan` crate

### 📊 What About Prettier?

Prettier's time is dominated by Node.js startup (\~60-70ms), not formatting
logic. For one-off CLI invocations, panache wins decisively. For long-running
processes (e.g., editor integration), Prettier's startup cost is amortized, but
panache remains faster.

### 🎯 What About Pandoc?

Pandoc is a general-purpose document converter supporting 40+ formats. panache
is specialized for markdown/Quarto formatting, enabling focused optimizations.
Pandoc remains the gold standard for syntax correctness, but panache delivers
3-10x faster formatting.

## Reproducing Benchmarks

All benchmarks are reproducible:

```bash
# Download test documents
cd benches/documents && ./download.sh && cd ../..

# Run comparison benchmark
./benches/compare_all.sh

# Or run internal benchmarks
cargo bench --bench formatting
```
