Awesome
Performance test of some of the Zsh plugin managers
To run the test, execute:
./run.zsh
However, there are problems with zplug
when running the test this way – the test hangs with a message:
zsh: suspended (tty input) ./run.zsh
So an invocation of fg
is required. To address this, run the test script as a function:
fpath+=( $PWD )
autoload run.zsh
run.zsh
Drawing the results
To generate a graph of the average load times:
First, install dependencies:
python3 -m pip install matplotlib
Then,
python3 plot.py
Details of the test
The test loads the following 28 plugins:
arzzen/git-quick-stats.git
fakerr/git-recall
geometry-zsh/geometry
hlissner/zsh-autopair
iwata/git-now
jhawthorn/fzy
junegunn/fzf-bin
k4rthik/git-cal
ogham/exa
ohmyzsh / lib/git.zsh
ohmyzsh / plugins/git/git.plugin.zsh
tj/git-extras
trapd00r/ls_colors
urbainvaes/fzf-marks
voronkovich/gitignore.plugin.zsh
zdharma-continuum/declare-zshrc
zdharma-continuum/git-url
zdharma-continuum/history-search-multi-word
zdharma-continuum/revolver
zdharma-continuum/vramsteg-zsh
zdharma-continuum/zconvey
zdharma-continuum/zsh-diff-so-fancy
zdharma-continuum/zsh-editing-workbench
zdharma-continuum/zsh-navigation-tools
zdharma-continuum/zsh-unique-id
zdharma-continuum/zui
zdharma-continuum/zunit
zsh-users/zsh-autosuggestions
Some of the plugins are relatively regular Makefile
-based projects, like arzzen/git-quick-stats.git
. The
atclone''
, make''
, ice modifiers of Zinit and the hook-build
tag of Zplug allow to install and use them. However
they're problematic with zgen
, which doesn't have such hooks. For it, instead an empty plugin
zdharma/null is being loaded in a following way:
# git-recall
zgen load zdharma-continuum/null null.plugin.zsh empty-plugin.zsh-13
# git-quick-stats
zgen load zdharma-continuum/null null.plugin.zsh empty-plugin.zsh-14
the empty-plugin.zsh-14
, etc. is a branch. The file null.plugin.zsh
contains only 3 instructions:
0="${${ZERO:-${0:#$ZSH_ARGZERO}}:-${(%):-%N}}"
0="${${(M)0:#/*}:-$PWD/$0}"
true
This way, a little balance is introduced into the test and creates a good minimum for the comparison – to have zgen
only clone and load an almost empty plugin instead of setting up a PATH
for a command-like plugin, especially because
of the way that zgen
works – by storing plain source
commands and not executing any code.
However, it puts zgen
in a better position because it has to clone an almost empty repository and not a complete
project, so the installation-time test is biased. However, it's hard to address this without simplifying the test
because of limited zgen
functionality. Also, zgen
doesn't run the compilation (i.e. make
) during the installation
of the plugins.
Zplug and Zinit tests are relatively identical (zshrc for Zplug, zshrc for Zinit).
Results
Result comments
The three different Zinit results need explaining:
- Zinit light – plugins are being loaded without tracking, i.e., cannot be unloaded, and their reports are empty.
- Zinit load – plugins are being loaded with tracking, i.e., are available for unloading, and their report data is
gathered (available through
zinit report {plugin-name}
command). - Zinit (Turbo) load – plugins are loaded with tracking and in Turbo mode – i.e., in the background & after prompt – the shell is instantly ready to use.