Windows 11 WSL2 Performance Is Quite Competitive Against Ubuntu 20.04 LTS / Ubuntu 21.10

Written by Michael Larabel in Operating Systems on 29 September 2021 at 09:18 AM EDT. Page 5 of 5. 95 Comments.
Windows 11 WSL Performance
Windows 11 WSL Performance
Windows 11 WSL Performance
Windows 11 WSL Performance
Windows 11 WSL Performance
Windows 11 WSL Performance
Windows 11 WSL Performance
Windows 11 WSL Performance

Python performance was repeatedly coming in faster on WSL2 Ubuntu than bare metal Ubuntu, likely due to power management / performance state behavior differences with Windows 11 itself.

Windows 11 WSL Performance
Windows 11 WSL Performance
Windows 11 WSL Performance

Nginx was even performing rather well for static web page serving from WSL2.

Windows 11 WSL Performance
Windows 11 WSL Performance
Windows 11 WSL Performance

Apache HTTPD though performed very poorly under WSL2.

Windows 11 WSL Performance
Windows 11 WSL Performance

Out of 130 tests in total, Windows 11 WSL2 Ubuntu 20.04 LTS managed to run at 94% the speed of bare metal Ubuntu 20.04 LTS on the same system. Not bad at all especially in the CPU/system benchmarks where in many cases delivered comparable performance to Ubuntu Linux itself. Those wishing to go through these 130 benchmarks in full for AMD Ryzen on Windows 11 WSL2 Ubuntu can see this OpenBenchmarking.org result file. Look for more Windows 11 vs. Linux benchmarks in October.

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About The Author
Michael Larabel

Michael Larabel is the principal author of Phoronix.com and founded the site in 2004 with a focus on enriching the Linux hardware experience. Michael has written more than 20,000 articles covering the state of Linux hardware support, Linux performance, graphics drivers, and other topics. Michael is also the lead developer of the Phoronix Test Suite, Phoromatic, and OpenBenchmarking.org automated benchmarking software. He can be followed via Twitter, LinkedIn, or contacted via MichaelLarabel.com.