innerHTML vs jQuery vs createElement() and appendChild() (v8)

Revision 8 of this benchmark created on

Description

Compares the performance of adding elements to the DOM by using strings and innerHTML, creating the DOMElement node tree and appending with appendChild(), and using jQuery to replace content with $elm.html().

Preparation HTML

<!-- Existing DOM elements into which the tests will append new content -->
<div id="parent-inject">Replace me via <code>elm.innerHTML()</code></div>
<hr/>
<div id="parent-create">Replace me via <code>elm.appendChild()</code></div>
<hr/>
<div id="parent-jquery">Replace me via <code>$elm.html()</code></div>

<script src="//ajax.googleapis.com/ajax/libs/jquery/1/jquery.min.js"></script>

Setup

/***
    * Create a realistic, level playing field by storing references to container
    * elements beforehand, as you would likely do in a real webapp.
    ***/
    
    // Existing DOM elements into which the tests will append new content
    var parentInject = document.getElementById('parent-inject');
    var parentCreate = document.getElementById('parent-create');
    var $parentJQuery = $('#parent-jquery');
    
    // This content string is assigned to a variable in each loop of each test.
    var contentString1 = '<div class="test" onmousemove="myFunction('
    var contentString2 = ')"><h1>This is a test</h1><p>This is only a test</p></div>';

Test runner

Ready to run.

Testing in
TestOps/sec
innerHTML
// Initialize the new content string. Assigns the string to a local variable to be more realistic (e.g. you'd likely do the same with the response body of an AJAX call).
var content = contentString1 + Math.random() +  contentString2;

// Inject the new content
parentInject.innerHTML = content;
ready
createElement() and appendChild()
// async test
// Remove the old content
var childNodes = parentCreate.childNodes,
    i = 0, len = childNodes.length;
for (i; i < len; ++i) {
  parentCreate.removeChild(childNodes[i]);
}

// Construct the new content
var div = document.createElement('div');
div.className = 'test';
div.onmousemove = function(){myFunction(Math.random())};

var h1 = document.createElement('h1');
var text = document.createTextNode('This is a test');

var p = document.createElement('p');
var text2 = document.createTextNode('This is only a test');

h1.appendChild(text);
p.appendChild(text2);
div.appendChild(h1);
div.appendChild(p);

// Insert the new content
parentCreate.appendChild(div);
ready
jQuery.fn.html()
// Initialize the new content string. Assigns the string to a local variable to be more realistic (e.g. you'd likely do the same with the response body of an AJAX call).
var content = contentString1 + Math.random() + contentString2;

// Inject the new content
$parentJQuery.html(content);
ready

Revisions

You can edit these tests or add more tests to this page by appending /edit to the URL.