A comprehensive benchmarking suite for comparing SSZ (Simple Serialize) library implementations in Go.

• fastssz - Code generation based SSZ library
• dynamic-ssz - Dynamic SSZ library with support for both reflection and code generation modes
• karalabe-ssz - High-performance SSZ library
• prysm-ssz - Prysm's fork of fastssz
• ztyp / zrnt - Typed SSZ library focused on merkle-tree representations (uses zrnt's pre-defined Ethereum types)

The benchmarks use real Ethereum consensus layer data:

• Block Mainnet: Deneb signed beacon block from mainnet
• State Mainnet: Deneb beacon state from mainnet
• Block Minimal: Deneb signed beacon block with minimal preset
• State Minimal: Deneb beacon state with minimal preset

Each library is tested for the following operations:

• Unmarshal: Deserialize SSZ bytes into Go structures
• Marshal: Serialize Go structures into SSZ bytes
• HashTreeRoot: Compute the Merkle root of the structure

The dynamic-ssz library supports two modes:

• Codegen (benchmarks/dynamicssz): Uses pre-generated SSZ code (similar to fastssz). The generated code provides fastssz-compatible methods that dynamic-ssz can use for better performance.
• Reflection (benchmarks/dynamicssz-reflection): Uses pure Go reflection for SSZ encoding/decoding without any generated code. This mode is fully dynamic and can handle different spec presets at runtime.

# Run fastssz benchmarks
cd benchmarks/fastssz
go test -run=^$ -bench=. -benchmem

# Run dynamic-ssz benchmarks (with generated code)
cd benchmarks/dynamicssz
go test -run=^$ -bench=. -benchmem

# Run dynamic-ssz benchmarks (pure reflection, no generated code)
cd benchmarks/dynamicssz-reflection
go test -run=^$ -bench=. -benchmem

# Run karalabe-ssz benchmarks
cd benchmarks/karalabessz
go test -run=^$ -bench=. -benchmem

# Run prysm-ssz benchmarks
cd benchmarks/prysmssz
go test -run=^$ -bench=. -benchmem

# Run ztyp/zrnt benchmarks
cd benchmarks/ztyp
go test -run=^$ -bench=. -benchmem

ssz-benchmark/
├── benchmarks/
│   ├── fastssz/              # fastssz benchmark module
│   ├── dynamicssz/           # dynamic-ssz with generated code
│   ├── dynamicssz-reflection/# dynamic-ssz pure reflection (no codegen)
│   ├── karalabessz/          # karalabe-ssz benchmark module
│   ├── prysmssz/             # prysm-ssz benchmark module
│   └── ztyp/                 # ztyp/zrnt benchmark module
├── res/                      # Test data files
│   ├── block-mainnet.ssz
│   ├── state-mainnet.ssz
│   ├── block-minimal.ssz
│   └── state-minimal.ssz
└── .github/workflows/        # CI/CD workflows

View interactive benchmark results and historical trends at: https://pk910.github.io/ssz-benchmark/

Contributions are welcome! Please feel free to submit pull requests or open issues for:

• Adding new SSZ libraries
• Improving benchmark methodology
• Adding new test scenarios

MIT License