FYI I ran on the worldcities data at https://github.com/petewarden/dstkdata https://github.com/petewarden/dstkdata (credit to xsv for choosing that dataset) aga

FYI I ran on the worldcities data at https://github.com/petewarden/dstkdata https://github.com/petewarden/dstkdata (credit to xsv for choosing that dataset) against https://github.com/BurntSushi/xsv https://github.com/BurntSushi/xsv and https://github.com/liquidaty/zsv https://github.com/liquidaty/zsv (full disclosure: I am one of the zsv authors). Here's what I got. fastest to slowest: zsv (0.07), xsv (0.16), goawk (0.42), python (~1.6) Obviously, does not tell the whole story as this test was limited to "count" and an interpreted language is expected to always be slower compared to a precompiled command, but, it might be relevant to a user deciding what tool to use. Also, might be instructive as to room for improvement in the go code (or possibly the go code could use the c lib)-- I note that even if the goawk command is '{}' the runtime is still about the same. full results: --- goawk: 1000001 7000007 real 0m0.435s user 0m0.435s sys 0m0.031s 1000001 7000007 real 0m0.413s user 0m0.419s sys 0m0.024s 1000001 7000007 real 0m0.425s user 0m0.430s sys 0m0.024s xsv: 1000000 real 0m0.157s user 0m0.141s sys 0m0.013s 1000000 real 0m0.156s user 0m0.141s sys 0m0.012s 1000000 real 0m0.158s user 0m0.142s sys 0m0.013s zsv: 1000000 real 0m0.066s user 0m0.053s sys 0m0.010s 1000000 real 0m0.077s user 0m0.060s sys 0m0.012s 1000000 real 0m0.069s user 0m0.056s sys 0m0.010s python: 1000001 7000007 real 0m1.589s user 0m1.553s sys 0m0.026s 1000001 7000007 real 0m1.583s user 0m1.550s sys 0m0.025s 1000001 7000007 real 0m2.122s user 0m1.675s sys 0m0.037s --- The script for this was: --- echo 'goawk:' (time goawk -i csv '{ w+=NF } END { print NR, w }' < worldcitiespop_mil.csv) 2>&1 | xargs (time goawk -i csv '{ w+=NF } END { print NR, w }' < worldcitiespop_mil.csv) 2>&1 | xargs (time goawk -i csv '{ w+=NF } END { print NR, w }' < worldcitiespop_mil.csv) 2>&1 | xargs echo 'xsv:' (time xsv count < worldcitiespop_mil.csv) 2>&1 | xargs (time xsv count < worldcitiespop_mil.csv) 2>&1 | xargs (time xsv count < worldcitiespop_mil.csv) 2>&1 | xargs echo 'zsv:' (time zsv count < worldcitiespop_mil.csv) 2>&1 | xargs (time zsv count < worldcitiespop_mil.csv) 2>&1 | xargs (time zsv count < worldcitiespop_mil.csv) 2>&1 | xargs echo 'python:' (time python3 count.py < worldcitiespop_mil.csv) 2>&1 | xargs (time python3 count.py < worldcitiespop_mil.csv) 2>&1 | xargs (time python3 count.py < worldcitiespop_mil.csv) 2>&1 | xargs