The Green Side of the Lua
Recorded: May 28, 2026, 5:03 a.m.
| Original | Summarized |
[2601.16670] The Green Side of the Lua
Skip to main content Learn about arXiv becoming an independent nonprofit. We gratefully acknowledge support from the Simons Foundation, member institutions, and all contributors. > cs > arXiv:2601.16670 Help | Advanced Search All fields Search open search GO open navigation menu quick links Login Computer Science > Software Engineering arXiv:2601.16670 (cs) [Submitted on 23 Jan 2026 (v1), last revised 30 Jan 2026 (this version, v2)] Abstract:The United Nations' 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development highlights the importance of energy-efficient software to reduce the global carbon footprint. Programming languages and execution models strongly influence software energy consumption, with interpreted languages generally being less efficient than compiled ones. Lua illustrates this trade-off: despite its popularity, it is less energy-efficient than greener and faster languages such as C. Subjects: Software Engineering (cs.SE); Programming Languages (cs.PL) Cite as: Focus to learn more arXiv-issued DOI via DataCite Submission history From: João Saraiva [view email] [v1]
Full-text links: View a PDF of the paper titled The Green Side of the Lua, by Andr\'e Brand\~ao and 4 other authorsView PDFHTML (experimental)TeX Source view license < prev | new Change to browse by: References & Citations NASA ADSGoogle Scholar export BibTeX citation BibTeX formatted citation loading... Data provided by: Bookmark
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The study presented in this paper investigates the energy efficiency and runtime performance of the Lua programming language, framed within the context of the United Nations' 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development which prioritizes energy-efficient software to mitigate the global carbon footprint. The authors posit that the choice of programming language and execution model significantly impacts software energy consumption, noting that interpreted languages are generally less energy-efficient compared to compiled languages. Specifically, Lua, despite its widespread adoption, exhibits lower energy efficiency when compared to greener and faster alternatives such as C. To empirically analyze this trade-off, the research conducted an empirical study measuring the runtime performance and energy consumption across twenty-five official versions of Lua interpreters and various just-in-time (JIT) compilers. This analysis utilized a comprehensive benchmark suite to thoroughly evaluate the evolution of Lua, the impact of JIT compilation techniques, and comparisons against other languages. The results demonstrated a significant performance and efficiency gap between standard Lua interpreters and those employing JIT compilation methods. The findings clearly indicate that all LuaJIT compilers significantly outperform standard Lua interpreters. The most efficient LuaJIT implementation was found to consume approximately seven times less energy and execute operations seven times faster than the most efficient standard Lua interpreter. Furthermore, the study established that LuaJIT approaches the efficiency levels of C, consuming roughly six times more energy while running approximately eight times slower. This quantitative data strongly supports the conclusion that JIT compilation provides substantial benefits for enhancing both the performance and energy efficiency inherent in interpreted languages. |