JavaScript Library Performance Comparisons - any resources out there?

Question

I'm putting together a presentation to my company on the reasons I'm adopting jQuery as the preferred JavaScript / AJAX library.

While most of the work is done, a comparison between different libraries would be of great use - especially against the Microsoft ASP.Net Ajax framework.

Now please note I'm not after a theological debate on which framework is better here. We've previously used Microsoft's stuff and are systematically switching more over to jQuery. I want to lend weight to that initiative with some good quantifiable measures on performance, footprints (i.e. library sizes - minified and "raw") and so on.

Does anyone know of any resources that can provide these sorts of measures? Remember - I'm after a comparison that includes Microsoft. Resources like the Wikipedia comparison chart don't yet include this.

Answer 1

I'm not really sure if comparing ASP.NET AJAX to jQuery is apples-to-apples. ASP.NET AJAX serves a very specific subset of client-side functionality, specifically adding asynchronous abilities to the WebForms control model, with the specific intention of abstracting away the markup & client-side script whenever possible. jQuery, on the other hand, is specifically for hand-crafting JS functionality.

I would say the fact that the Microsoft/ASP.NET team recommends using jQuery for nearly everything, and the fact that the ASP.NET 4.0 futures/roadmap relies on jQuery more heavily than ever would indicate that MS themselves regard jQuery as better all-around. It's generally well-known that jQuery is blisteringly fast for most things.

Answer 2

With the release of the latest jQuery they provided comparisons to many of the other JavaScript libraries out there: jQuery 1.3 release. It's very extensive and covers multiple aspects of the library, not just an overall comparison.