Benchmark
JairoSVG vs EchoSVG vs CairoSVG
Benchmark comparing SVG → PNG conversion across three libraries:
- JairoSVG (Java 25) — This project
- EchoSVG (Java) — Batik fork, css4j/echosvg
- CairoSVG (Python) — Native C rendering via Cairo, cairosvg.org
Results
Each test case was run with 20 warmup iterations and 1000 measurement iterations.
| Test Case | JairoSVG | EchoSVG | CairoSVG | JairoSVG vs EchoSVG |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Simple shapes | 1.3 ms | 9.2 ms | 2.0 ms | 6.9x faster |
| Gradients + transforms | 3.6 ms | 34.6 ms | 5.3 ms | 9.5x faster |
| Complex paths + text | 5.4 ms | 28.9 ms | 6.0 ms | 5.4x faster |
Analysis
- JairoSVG is 5-10x faster than EchoSVG across all test cases
- JairoSVG is 1.1-1.5x faster than CairoSVG despite CairoSVG using a native C rendering backend
- JairoSVG achieves competitive performance through:
- Pre-compiled regex patterns
- Cached XML parser factories
- Object reuse (GeneralPath.reset())
- Efficient string processing
Test SVGs
Simple shapes: Rectangle, circle, ellipse, line, polygon, polyline with various fills and strokes.
Gradients + transforms: Linear and radial gradients with transforms, opacity, and gradient units.
Complex paths + text: Full path commands (M, L, C, S, Q, T, A), text with font properties, nested groups, clip paths.
Running the Benchmark
Prerequisites: JBang, Python 3 with CairoSVG (pip install cairosvg), Java 25+.
# Install JairoSVG to local Maven repo
./mvnw install -DskipTests
# Run benchmark
jbang comparison/benchmark.java
The benchmark script is in the comparison folder: comparison/benchmark.java.