benchmark.html

---
title: Benchmarks
layout: default
section: benchmark
---
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<h1>Benchmarks</h1>
<p>I used <a href="https://github.com/mfontanini/packet-capture-benchmarks">Matias Fontanini's packet-capture-benchmarks project</a> to compare the performance of PcapPlusPlus with other similar C++ libraries (libtins and libcrafter)</p>
<h2>Testing environment</h2>
<p>I ran all 3 benchmarks provided in packet-capture-benchmarks on the following environment:</p>
<ul>
  <li>Linux Ubuntu 16.04 64-bit running as a VirtualBox VM</li>
  <li>Compiler is GCC 5.4.0</li>
  <li>Host platform is a dual-core Intel Core i5 760 2.8GHz with 8GB RAM system running Windows 10 64-bit</li>
</ul>
<p>The benchmark application can be found in <a href="examples.html#benchmark">PcapPlusPlus examples</a></p>
<h2>Tested libraries</h2>
<p>I decided to compare PcapPlusPlus only to similar C++ libraries such as <a href="https://libtins.github.io/">libtins</a> and <a href="https://code.google.com/archive/p/libcrafter/">libcrafter</a>. That's because Python or Java libraries cannot compete with native code libraries in terms of performance. I used the latest versions available at the time of the test (Nov 25 2017):</p>
<ul>
  <li>libpcap 1.8.1</li>
  <li>PcapPlusPlus - <a href="https://github.com/seladb/PcapPlusPlus/tree/f6e04a747679d3923687fe4c964c230cd46b0e98">commit f6e04a7</a></li>
  <li>libtins - <a href="https://github.com/mfontanini/libtins/tree/f4635a696e7f13d946c31e1ff2599e900f804d47">commit f4635a6</a></li>
	<li>libcrafter - <a href="https://github.com/pellegre/libcrafter/tree/3db70ab6fd62ade25de7328aaf8e9ba92696c92e">commit 3db70ab</a></li>
</ul>
<h2>Test results</h2>
<h2>Benchmark #1 - Interpretting TCP</h2>
<table>
  <thead>
	<tr>
	  <th>Library</th>
	  <th align="right">Time taken(seconds)</th>
	  <th align="right">Packets per second</th>
	</tr>
  </thead>
  <tbody>
	<tr>
	  <td>libpcap</td>
	  <td align="right">0.201</td>
	  <td align="right">2487562</td>
	</tr>
	<tr>
	  <td><strong>PcapPlusPlus</strong></td>
	  <td align="right"><strong>0.327</strong></td>
	  <td align="right"><strong>1529051</strong></td>
	</tr>
	<tr>
	  <td>libtins</td>
	  <td align="right">0.385</td>
	  <td align="right">1298701</td>
	</tr>
	<tr>
	  <td>libcrafter</td>
	  <td align="right">14.401</td>
	  <td align="right">34719</td>
	</tr>
  </tbody>
</table>
<div id="tcp_no_options"></div>
<hr>
<p>As you can see PcapPlusPlus is <strong>~15% faster</strong> than libtins and <strong>~x44 faster</strong> than libcrafter</p>

<h2>Benchmark #2 - Interpretting TCP + TCP Options</h2>
<table>
  <thead>
	<tr>
	  <th>Library</th>
	  <th align="right">Time taken(seconds)</th>
	  <th align="right">Packets per second</th>
	</tr>
  </thead>
  <tbody>
	<tr>
	  <td>libpcap</td>
	  <td align="right">0.154</td>
	  <td align="right">3246753</td>
	</tr>
	<tr>
	  <td><strong>PcapPlusPlus</strong></td>
	  <td align="right"><strong>0.335</strong></td>
	  <td align="right"><strong>1492537</strong></td>
	</tr>
	<tr>
	  <td>libtins</td>
	  <td align="right">0.508</td>
	  <td align="right">984251</td>
	</tr>
	<tr>
	  <td>libcrafter</td>
	  <td align="right">24.176</td>
	  <td align="right">20681</td>
	</tr>
  </tbody>
</table>
<div id="tcp_with_options"></div>
<hr>
<p>As you can see PcapPlusPlus is <strong>~35% faster</strong> than libtins and <strong>~x72 faster</strong> than libcrafter</p>

<h2>Benchmark #3 - Interpretting DNS</h2>
<table>
  <thead>
	<tr>
	<th>Library</th>
	<th align="right">Time taken(seconds)</th>
	<th align="right">Packets per second</th>
	</tr>
  </thead>
  <tbody>
	<tr>
	  <td>libpcap</td>
	  <td align="right">0.050</td>
	  <td align="right">10000000</td>
	</tr>
	<tr>
	  <td><strong>PcapPlusPlus</strong></td>
	  <td align="right"><strong>0.425</strong></td>
	  <td align="right"><strong>1176470</strong></td>
	</tr>
	<tr>
	  <td>libtins</td>
	  <td align="right">0.466</td>
	  <td align="right">1072961</td>
	</tr>
	<tr>
	  <td>libcrafter</td>
	  <td align="right">15.923</td>
	  <td align="right">31401</td>
	</tr>
  </tbody>
</table>
<div id="dns"></div>
<hr>
<p>As you can see PcapPlusPlus is <strong>~8% faster</strong> than libtins and <strong>~x37 faster</strong> than libcrafter</p>