snailrace

snailrace benchmarks commands on Linux and macOS. It measures time, CPU, memory, process structure, and static disk footprint.

Install

Homebrew (macOS / Linux)

brew install shellcell/tap/snailrace

Linux packages (apt / dnf / apk)

Enable the shellcell repository once — setup instructions at https://packages.shellcell.dev — then:

sudo apt install snailrace # Debian / Ubuntu
sudo dnf install snailrace # Fedora / RHEL
sudo apk add snailrace # Alpine

Arch (AUR)

With an AUR helper (e.g. paru or yay):

paru -S snailrace # builds from source
paru -S snailrace-bin # prebuilt binary

Or manually:

git clone https://aur.archlinux.org/snailrace.git # or snailrace-bin.gitcd snailrace && makepkg -si

Go

go install github.com/shellcell/snailrace/cmd/snailrace@latest # Go 1.22+

Prebuilt binaries

Download the archive for your OS/arch from Releases; each contains the binary, man page, and shell completions. To build from source, see Build below.

Build

Requires Go 1.22+. macOS also requires a C compiler for the cgo libproc sampler.

make build

Examples

Benchmark one command:

./snailrace -n 20 -warmups 3 -- gzip -k sample.txt

Compare shell commands:

./snailrace -n 20 -c 'grep needle data.txt' -c 'rg needle data.txt'

An HTML report is saved to the current directory by default. Choose another directory:

./snailrace -format html -output ./reports -- ./my-program --flag

Use -no-save when only stdout output is wanted.

Measure an interactive TUI:

./snailrace tui -- htop
./snailrace tui -duration 30s -n 5 -c htop -c btop

Options

Option	Purpose
-c, -command	Shell command; repeat to compare
-label	Command display label
-prepare	One-time setup command
-n, -runs	Measured runs; default 10
-warmups	Warmup runs; default 1
-interval	Sampling interval; default 10 ms
-index	Index dimensions: time,cpu,ram,disk
-baseline	1-based baseline; 0 selects the winner
-f, -format	Saved format; default html
-o, -output	Report directory; default current directory
-no-save	Do not save report files
-verbose	Full statistical tables on stdout
-show-output	Forward command output to stderr
tui	Run inside a pseudo-terminal
-d, -duration	Fixed TUI duration
-width, -height	TUI geometry

Metrics

Group	Metrics
Time	Wall time
CPU	User, system, total, average utilization
Memory	Mean/peak tree RSS, OS max RSS, peak virtual memory
macOS memory	Peak aggregate physical footprint
Structure	Peak processes, threads, file descriptors where available
Disk	Executable and statically linked dynamic-library files

Raw runs and summary statistics are available in JSON. Reports include mean, sample standard deviation, median, p95, range, and a 95% Student's t interval. Every format identifies the dimensions actually included in the balanced index and records sampling or metric-availability caveats.

Method

• Runs use randomized counterbalanced order.
• The default index combines normalized time, CPU, and RAM costs.
• RAM cost combines mean and peak RSS.
• Sampling-limited RAM is excluded from the index.
• Commands with non-zero measured exits continue running but are excluded from rankings.
• If none of the selected dimensions is usable, reports mark the balanced ranking unavailable.
• Ctrl+C keeps completed comparison rounds.
• Command output is discarded unless -show-output is set.
• Native executables run through the inspected artifact and are identity/hash-checked after measurement.
• Scripts preserve their original invocation path so $0-relative behavior is unchanged.

Saved reports are staged before publication and receive a numeric suffix rather than overwriting an existing report with the same timestamp.

Platform Notes

• Linux reads /proc and measures every member of the command's process group, including descendants reparented while the benchmark is running.
• macOS uses cgo with proc_listpgrppids, proc_pidinfo, and proc_pid_rusage.
• macOS physical footprint estimates memory pressure charged to each process.
• Physical-footprint validity is tracked per run; unavailable samples are not treated as zero.
• Tree RSS can double-count shared pages.
• Sampled peaks can miss activity shorter than the interval.
• macOS does not report file descriptor counts.

Disk Footprint

• For a simple external -c command, disk footprint describes its leading executable; shell builtins describe the shell itself.
• Disk-backed @rpath, @loader_path, and @executable_path libraries are resolved recursively.
• macOS dyld shared-cache libraries are listed but excluded from byte totals.
• Shared-cache libraries have no standalone size attributable to one command.
• Runtime plugins and executables launched by children are not included.

Commands that daemonize or escape their process group are unsupported.