zk-Harness

There is a large and increasing number of libraries that enable verifiable computation with zero-knowledge succinct non-interactive arguments (zkSNARKs). Whereas the performance of zkSNARKs is well-understood in theory, various factors make it difficult to compare different proof systems without favoring some approaches over others. Evaluating the practical performance of a specific library can be difficult due to various factors, such as the underlying elliptic curve, the proof system at hand, the arithmetization supported, or due to application-specific factors such as the desired security level.

zk-Harness is a benchmarking framework that aims to address these barriers by providing a unified benchmark for standardized evaluation of existing libraries for zkSNARKS. It is designed to be easily extendable - libraries can be easily added and compared for standardized functionalities, whereas circuit developers can simply add their already developed circuit to evaluate its performance. zk-Harness provides benchmarks along the whole zkSNARK stack. The backend for mathematical operations (field & curve) is inherited from zka.lc, a project from Michele Orrù and George Kadianakis. The benchmark results are hosted at zk-bench.org.

Clone

git clone --recurse-submodules -j8 git@github.com:zkCollective/zk-Harness.git
# or 
git clone git@github.com:zkCollective/zk-Harness.git
git submodule update --init --recursive

Update benchmarks

To pull the latest results run:

git submodule update --remote benchmarks

Structure

• benchmarks: Directory containing the results of the benchmarks.
• src: Python code to run the benchmarks and parse the results
• input: Configuration and input files
  • input/circuit: Input files for each circuit, i.e., values to be used as the inputs in circuits for benchmarking.
  • input/config: configurations for executing benchmarks for a specific framework using zkbench
• app: UI code for presenting the results.
• frameworks: Directory containing the harness for each framework to benchmark circuits.
• data: Auxilary data
  • data/circuits.json: Supported zkSNARK frameworks
  • data/math.json: Supported math libraries
• scripts: Other auxiliary scripts

Circuit payloads supported by zk-Harness

The current framework supports a set of payloads for each library.

	Exponentiate	SHA-256
Bellman	✔️ (custom)	✔️ (implementation)
Circom	✔️ (custom)	✔️ (implementation)
Gnark	✔️ (custom)	✔️ (custom)
Halo2-PSE	✔️ (custom)	✔️ (implementation)
Starky	✔️ (custom)	❌

Curves and Fields

	Language	Curves/Fields	Frameworks
blstrs	Rust	BLS12-381
gnark-crypto	Go	BN254, BLS12-377, BLS12-378, BLS12-381, BLS12-387, BLS24-315, BLS24-317, BW6-761, BW6-756, BW6-633, secp256k1, stark-curve, goldilocks	gnark
arkworks-curves	Rust	BN254, BLS12-377, BLS12-381, MNT4-298, MNT4-753, MNT6-298, MNT6-753, Grumpkin, BW6-761, CP6-782, secp256k1, secp256r1, secp384r1, secq256k1	arkworks
curve25519-dalek	Rust	Curve25519
ffjavascript	JavaScript/WASM	BN128, BLS12-381	snarkjs
ffiasm	C++	BN128, BLS12-381	rapidsnark
halo2curves	Rust	BN256, Pallas, Vesta	halo2-PSE
pairing_ce	Rust	BN256, BLS12-381	bellman-ce
pairing	Rust	jubjub, BLS12-381	bellman
pasta_curves	Rust	Pallas, Vesta	halo2

How to use

To run the benchmarks, you will first need to follow the installation instructions.

To run all benchmarks for mathematical operations, run make math.

Run test benchmarks for end-to-end circuits, run make circuits-test.

To run all benchmarks for end-to-end circuits, run make circuits.

To keep logs for the runs you can use the tee command, e.g., make circuits 2>&1 | tee logs

Add benchmarks for new circuits

zk-Harness is easily extensible and modular, which means that you should be able to integrate you own circuits with ease. Each framework in framework/<framework_name> includes a detailed description on how to add a self-developed circuit that goes beyond the standard payloads already integrated.

zk-Harness architecture and add support for new frameworks

See ARCHITECTURE.md

How to contribute / TODOs

We aim to successively expand this list to further include benchmarks for other ZKP frameworks, more circuits, and recursive composition of proofs.

There are many ways in which you can contribute to the zk-Harness:

• [] Add benchmarks for circuits in an already integrated framework
• [] Integrate a new framework into the zk-Harness
• [] Integrate new math benchmarks in zkalc
• [] Run existing benchmarks to additional machines
• [] Work on any open GitHub issue
• [] Propose new visualizations for the results
• [] Propose new benchmark categories, such as recursion benchmarking

Please read the Contribution Guidelines before creating a PR or opening an issue.

zk-Harness is developed as part of the zk-Hackathon hosted by the Berkeley Center for Responsible Decentralized Intelligence. Further, zk-Harness is part of the zk-Collective.