I have also seen Matlab code match Julia for simple loops. If you write your code properly vectorized and with loops that use only calls to 'built-in' operators

I have also seen Matlab code match Julia for simple loops. If you write your code properly vectorized and with loops that use only calls to 'built-in' operators and C-functions, then it can match C/Julia. But that's just extremely restrictive. The jit does not work on arbitrary user code.