Imaging libraries benchmark

This is a collection of benchmarks to measure image loading times across different C/C++ imaging libraries.

Google Benchmark is used as the benchmarking framework.

The benchmarks use JPEG and PNG files as input with four different resolutions, grey and RGB.

Target platform: Windows x64 with MSVC 2019+.

Any contributions are highly welcomed.

Tested libraries

The benchmarks test image loading (decoding) performance. Each library loads images using its default settings without pixel format conversions.

• Boost.GIL
• CImg
• DevIL
• FreeImage
• gdk-pixbuf
• GraphicsMagick
• OpenCV
• OpenImageIO
• SAIL
• SDL_Image
• stb_image
• WIC (Windows only)

Building

Install vcpkg following the official instructions. Install CMake.

Clone vcpkg to ../vcpkg/ relative to the project directory:

cd ..
git clone https://github.com/microsoft/vcpkg.git
cd vcpkg
./bootstrap-vcpkg.sh  # Linux/Mac
# or
bootstrap-vcpkg.bat   # Windows

All dependencies are managed through vcpkg. The project includes a vcpkg.json manifest file that will automatically install required packages when configuring with CMake.

Build the project:

mkdir build
cd build
cmake -DCMAKE_BUILD_TYPE=Release ..
cmake --build . --config Release

Running

Run all benchmarks:

./run-benchmarks.sh

License

Released under the MIT license.

Copyright (c) 2020-2026 Dmitry Baryshev

The MIT License

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in the Software without restriction, including without limitation the rights
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copies of the Software, and to permit persons to whom the Software is
furnished to do so, subject to the following conditions:

The above copyright notice and this permission notice shall be included in all
copies or substantial portions of the Software.

THE SOFTWARE IS PROVIDED "AS IS", WITHOUT WARRANTY OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS OR
IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO THE WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY,
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SOFTWARE.