appendChild vs. DocumentFragment vs. innerHTML (v12)

Revision 12 of this benchmark created on

Description

Comparing 3 different ways to dynamically insert new elements into the DOM tree.

Preparation HTML

<div id="test1">
</div>
<div id="test2">
</div>
<div id="test3">
</div>
<div id="test4">
</div>
<div id="test5">
</div>
<script>
  // You can read this:
  // http://ejohn.org/blog/dom-documentfragments/
  
  function text(node, txt) {
    node.appendChild(document.createTextNode(txt));
    return node;
  }
  
  function cleanUp(node) {
    node.innerHTML = "";
  }
  
  var content = [ // I hate the way jsPerf formats arrays
  document.createElement("hr"), text(document.createElement("b"), "Links:"), document.createTextNode(" "), text(document.createElement("a"), "Link A"), document.createTextNode(" | "), text(document.createElement("a"), "Link B"), document.createTextNode(" | "), text(document.createElement("a"), "Link C")];
</script>

Test runner

Ready to run.

Testing in
TestOps/sec
appendChild
var div1 = document.getElementById("test1");

for (var i = 0, j = content.length; i < j; i++) {
  div1.appendChild(content[i].cloneNode(true));
}

cleanUp(div1);
ready
DocumentFragment
var div2 = document.getElementById("test2"),
    fragment = document.createDocumentFragment();

for (var i = 0, j = content.length; i < j; i++) {
  fragment.appendChild(content[i]);
}

div2.appendChild(fragment.cloneNode(true));

cleanUp(div2);
ready
innerHTML
var div3 = document.getElementById("test3");

div3.innerHTML += "<hr><b>Links:</b> <a>Link A</a> | <a>Link B</a> | <a>Link C</a>";

cleanUp(div3);
ready
"Offline" node
var div4 = document.getElementById("test4"),
    container = document.createElement("div");

for (var i = 0, j = content.length; i < j; i++) {
  container.appendChild(content[i]);
}

div4.appendChild(container);

cleanUp(div4);
ready
"Offline" innerHTML
var div5 = document.getElementById("test5"),
    innerHTML;
innerHTML += "<hr><b>Links:</b> <a>Link A</a> | <a>Link B</a> | <a>Link C</a>";

div5.innerHTML = innerHTML;

cleanUp(div5);
ready

Revisions

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