Rust Compilation: Sequoia vs Tahoe
Are you curious to know if upgrading from macOS Sequoia to Tahoe will affect compilation speeds? Everyone seems to be piling onto the anti-Tahoe bandwagon, so I thought I’d add some anecdata to the anecdotes going around.
Note that I have two identical laptops, the only difference is that one has Tahoe:
Mac macOS Speed (lower is better)
--- ----- -----
2025 M2 Air 16GB RAM Sequoia 15.6 361.54s
2025 M2 Air 16GB RAM Tahoe 26.1 360.88s
My core point is: Tahoe isn’t slower in my (admittedly simplistic) Rust compilation benchmark. It’s technically 0.2% faster, but that’s statistically insignificant.
To the mix, I’ve added a few other Macs I had lying around, to add some colour to the conversation:
2022 M1 Studio Ultra Sequoia 15.6.1 512.63s
2025 M4 Air, 16GB RAM Sequoia 15.6 378.13s
2022 M2 Air, 8GB RAM Sequoia 343.97s
Note that all macs are ‘base models’ of their generation.
Benchmark details
So, this benchmark is, as mentioned above, admittedly simple. I recently wrote a Rust tool to extract the sprites and maps from the Commander Keen episodes, and this benchmark times how long it takes to compile its 16 source files from scratch 400 times. Despite its simplicity, the two identical-hardware Mac’s scored within 0.2% of each other, so it is at least consistent.
If you’d like to repeat it:
- Fresh install of macOS if possible
- Install default Rust via rustup.rs
- My macs were running Rustc 1.91.1
- Install homebrew via brew.sh
git clone https://github.com/chrishulbert/dopefish-decoder.git- Do your best to ensure other things aren’t running in the background
make bench
Conspiracy theory!
It’s surprising that the M4 doesn’t trounce the M2’s! I wonder if Apple is actually putting M4 chips into the 2025 batch of “M2” laptops that have been updated to have 16GB RAM. Given the RAM is integrated with the CPU, maybe it was just simpler for them to put M4 chips in, rather than dust off the M2 designs, add more RAM, and restart the production line? And maybe they just didn’t bother to throttle them in some way. Maybe?
Alternatively… perhaps this was just a poor benchmark? After all, my older M2 somehow came out fastest. But the performance consistency between the two identical laptops is remarkably tight, indicating at least some level of accuracy. My M4 also has a corporate security rootkit installed too, which may slow things. Lots to think about.
Ultra
It’s unfortunate to see the M1 Ultra taking a lot longer than the others. I guess the M1 is showing its age! I can see why Apple’s rumoured to have given up on the Mac Pro: by the time the Ultra team has managed to release an Mn Ultra, the Mn+1 Max is out and faster. If I were to make any recommendations here, I’d say forget previous-gen Ultras, instead buy latest-gen Studio Max. Perhaps Ultra will become more relevant once the yearly pace of improvement in M processors slows down.
Summary
So there you have it: Benchmarking is hard. Kudos to those who arguably do it well. If nothing else though, I wouldn’t be too worried about Tahoe slowing things down, it’s a perfectly cromulent word operating system. Thanks for reading, I pinky promise this was written by a human, not AI, hope you found this fascinating, at least a tiny bit, God bless!
Thanks for reading! And if you want to get in touch, I'd love to hear from you: chris.hulbert at gmail.
Chris Hulbert
(Comp Sci, Hons - UTS)
Software Developer (Freelancer / Contractor) in Australia.
I have worked at places such as Google, Cochlear, Assembly Payments, News Corp, Fox Sports, NineMSN, FetchTV, Coles, Woolworths, Trust Bank, and Westpac, among others. If you're looking for help developing an iOS app, drop me a line!
Get in touch:
[email protected]
github.com/chrishulbert
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