Wakana's language testing results:

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This documents a comparative experiment measuring the minimum achievable binary size for multiple programming languages using a basic, simple hello world program.

The goal is not performance, feature completeness, or ergonomics.
The goal is to answer a very specific question:

How small can a real, runnable Linux ELF executable be when written in different languages, once all reasonable size optimizations are applied?

This is a study in compiler philosophy, runtime overhead, and defaults.

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Scope & Non-Goals

What this is

• Size-focused benchmarking
• Real Linux ELF executables (Not just 'dud' bins)
• Aggressive but realistic optimization :3
• Comparison of language floors, not averages

What this is not

• A performance benchmark
• A test of language expressiveness
• A “which language is best” ranking
• A fair fight for large applications

Hello world is intentionally used because it maximizes runtime and toolchain overhead relative to user code. If a language is bloated, this exposes it immediately.

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Baseline

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ASM

• Size: 8.7kb
• File: ELF 64-bit LSB executable, x86-64, version 1 (SYSV), statically linked, not stripped
• Time: 0.002s

C

• Size: 15kb
• File: ELF 64-bit LSB pie executable, x86-64, version 1 (SYSV), dynamically linked, interpreter /lib64/ld-linux-x86-64.so.2, BuildID[sha1]=64063f10c432b94f955dff84677014f60f81f57c, for GNU/Linux 4.4.0, not stripped
• Time: 0.029s

C++

• Size: 15kb
• File: ELF 64-bit LSB pie executable, x86-64, version 1 (SYSV), dynamically linked, interpreter /lib64/ld-linux-x86-64.so.2, BuildID[sha1]=d0e863ef3ae14a590ba3ebe269a73387dfb74b37, for GNU/Linux 4.4.0, not stripped
• Time: 0.279s

Go

• Size: 2.2mb
• File: ELF 64-bit LSB executable, x86-64, version 1 (SYSV), statically linked, BuildID[sha1]=e41f1d65741313a995e750ac35c5efb15b20e4ce, with debug_info, not stripped
• Time: 0.059s

Nim

• Size: 100kb
• File: ELF 64-bit LSB pie executable, x86-64, version 1 (SYSV), dynamically linked, interpreter /lib64/ld-linux-x86-64.so.2, BuildID[sha1]=18552650b9d06b8a011ba2545076978a122f8c28, for GNU/Linux 4.4.0, not stripped
• Time 0.257s

Rust

• Size: 438kb
• File: ELF 64-bit LSB pie executable, x86-64, version 1 (SYSV), dynamically linked, interpreter /lib64/ld-linux-x86-64.so.2, for GNU/Linux 4.4.0, BuildID[sha1]=04a9a79e82837e810708976655ce6510907a007b, not stripped
• Time: 0.050s

Zig

• Size: 7.0mb
• File: ELF 64-bit LSB executable, x86-64, version 1 (SYSV), statically linked, with debug_info, not stripped
• Time: 0.313s

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Heavy optimization

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ASM

• Size: 8.0kb
• File: ELF 64-bit LSB executable, x86-64, version 1 (SYSV), statically linked, no section header
• Time: 0.002s

C

• Size: 12kb
• File: ELF 64-bit LSB pie executable, x86-64, version 1 (SYSV), BuildID[sha1]=2a9ea06105fe63f0df3b8a6c4718b3b54f630914, for GNU/Linux 4.4.0, dynamically linked, interpreter /lib64/ld-linux-x86-64.so.2, no section header
• Time: 0.051s

C++

• Size: 12kb
• File: ELF 64-bit LSB pie executable, x86-64, version 1 (SYSV), BuildID[sha1]=6021b9965cc81bf3444d8e11e49e67a8767c650f, for GNU/Linux 4.4.0, dynamically linked, interpreter /lib64/ld-linux-x86-64.so.2, no section header
• Time: 0.309s

Go

• Size: 1.4mb
• File: ELF 64-bit LSB executable, x86-64, version 1 (SYSV), statically linked, too large section header offset 1499136
• Time: 0.093s

Nim

• Size: 16kb
• File: ELF 64-bit LSB pie executable, x86-64, version 1 (SYSV), BuildID[sha1]=4628c33b9145f513de4eaaae59bf351feecc0d80, for GNU/Linux 4.4.0, dynamically linked, interpreter /lib64/ld-linux-x86-64.so.2, no section header
• Time: 0.509s

Rust

• Size: 294kb
• File: ELF 64-bit LSB pie executable, x86-64, version 1 (SYSV), for GNU/Linux 4.4.0, BuildID[sha1]=2cd1c73ebb63447e16e9f7db6e7ce6ff857a94ab, dynamically linked, interpreter /lib64/ld-linux-x86-64.so.2, no section header
• Time: 6.133s

Zig

• Size: 8.4kb
• File: ELF 64-bit LSB executable, x86-64, version 1 (SYSV), statically linked, no section header
• Time: 1.688s

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Hardware this was made on:

NASM 3.01 (2025-10-13)

GCC/G++ 15.2.1 (2025-11-12)

Binutils 2.45.1

Go go1.25.6

Nim 2.0.8 (2024-09-08)

Rustc 1.92.0 (2025-12-08)

Zig 0.15.2

Reproducibility

This repository includes:

Source files for each language

Build commands used

Result logs

Tool versions (where applicable)

Results should be reproducible on most Linux systems.

License

This repository is provided for educational and research purposes. No claims are made about suitability for production use.