GeoJSON: json vs msgpack vs shapely.wkb vs geobuf

benchmark.py

# Comparing serialization of complex GeoJSON geometries using:
# 
# - standard lib json, marshal, pickle, cPickle
# - umsgpack
# - shapely.wkb
# - geobuf (protobuf)
#
# The test case is a nearly circular polygon with 128 vertices.
#
# Python 2.7 because geobuf isn't possible on Python 3 (because
# protobuf).

import json
import marshal
import cPickle
import pickle
import timeit
import zlib

import geobuf
import msgpack
from shapely.geometry import mapping, Point, shape
from shapely import wkb
import umsgpack


def time_roundtrip(serializer, imports, statement):
    t = timeit.Timer(
        statement,
        setup="from __main__ import geom, {0}; eval('{1}')".format(
            imports, statement))
    print(serializer)
    print("%.2f usec/pass" % (1000000 * t.timeit(number=1000)/1000))
    print("")

geom = mapping(Point(0, 0).buffer(1.0, 32))

for serializer, imports, statement in [
        ('json', 'json', 'json.loads(json.dumps(geom))'),
        ('marshal', 'marshal', 'marshal.loads(marshal.dumps(geom))'),
        ('msgpack', 'msgpack', 'msgpack.loads(msgpack.dumps(geom))'),
        ('cPickle', 'cPickle', 'cPickle.loads(cPickle.dumps(geom))'),
        ('pickle', 'pickle', 'pickle.loads(pickle.dumps(geom))'),
        ('umsgpack', 'umsgpack', 'umsgpack.loads(umsgpack.dumps(geom))'),
        ('wkb', 'shape, wkb', 'wkb.loads(wkb.dumps(shape(geom)))'),
        ('geobuf', 'geobuf', 'geobuf.decode(geobuf.encode(geom))'),
        ('msgpack+zlib', 'msgpack, zlib',
            'msgpack.loads(zlib.decompress(zlib.compress(msgpack.dumps(geom))))'),
        ('json+zlib', 'json, zlib',
            'json.loads(zlib.decompress(zlib.compress(json.dumps(geom))))')
        ]:
    time_roundtrip(serializer, imports, statement)

results.txt

json
361.57 usec/pass

marshal
17.71 usec/pass

msgpack
49.55 usec/pass

cPickle
266.43 usec/pass

pickle
1558.78 usec/pass

umsgpack
1146.17 usec/pass

wkb
68.81 usec/pass

geobuf
2189.62 usec/pass

msgpack+zlib
169.66 usec/pass

json+zlib
564.29 usec/pass