Python 3.11 Is Much Faster, But Pyston & PyPy Still Show Advantages

There was much interest in the recent Python 3.11 beta benchmarks showing much performance uplift from this in-development version of Python compared to prior 3.x releases. While Python 3.11 performance is looking great and huge advantages compared to prior versions, there are also alternative Python implementations like PyPy and Pyston. Stemming from Phoronix reader requests, here are benchmarks showing how Python 3.11 beta performance compares to those alternative Python implementations.

Building off the prior (C)Python 3.11 benchmarking, this article shows how the Python reference implementation compares to the latest Pyston 2.3.3 and PyPy 3.9-v7.3.9 releases in the same PyBench and PyPerformance benchmarks. Additionally, this article features Python 3.11b3 results too -- with this Python 3.11 benchmark testing it was started last month but now up to the third beta, those numbers are included too. All the Python releases were built in the same release/optimized configuration. PyPy and Pyston were run using their official binaries.

When Python 3.11 nears its stable release later this year, I'll be around with plenty more Python benchmarks while for now is a quick look at the Python versions tested up against the current PyPy and Pyston releases.