Linux benchmark tools

For a while now, I have been wondering how to compare the performance of the many linux devices I have come across in my life.

I am a big fan of benchmarks and used to watch YT videos from channels like HardwareUnboxed and RandomGaminginHD for their interesting benchmarks while testing computer hardware. In those, they mostly compared using built in applications for benchmark or certain games.

What exists nowadays for benchmarking linux systems?

For linux, I think there are less comercial products for benchmarking, but there are a lot of other options:

Other options

There are many, many other programs that include or exist to collect data about the performance of a system. Some of them can be found in Archlinux Wiki.

fio (Disk benchmark)

sudo apt install fio

Run fio with:

sudo fio --filename=/mnt/test.fio --size=8GB --direct=1 --rw=randrw --bs=4k --ioengine=libaio --iodepth=256 --runtime=120 --numjobs=4 --time_based --group_reporting --name=iops-test-job --eta-newline=1

After a few minutes, the result is output to the terminal:

iops-test-job: (groupid=0, jobs=4): err= 0: pid=12811: Tue Jun  2 22:48:41 2026
read: IOPS=56.8k, BW=222MiB/s (233MB/s)(26.0GiB/120005msec)
    slat (usec): min=4, max=193532, avg= 7.21, stdev=169.31
    clat (usec): min=462, max=668187, avg=8526.47, stdev=27648.39
    lat (usec): min=472, max=668196, avg=8533.67, stdev=27649.75
    clat percentiles (usec):
    |  1.00th=[  1385],  5.00th=[  2024], 10.00th=[  2540], 20.00th=[  3425],
    | 30.00th=[  3851], 40.00th=[  4113], 50.00th=[  4490], 60.00th=[  4883],
    | 70.00th=[  5342], 80.00th=[  6128], 90.00th=[  7832], 95.00th=[ 11731],
    | 99.00th=[133694], 99.50th=[210764], 99.90th=[341836], 99.95th=[404751],
    | 99.99th=[488637]
bw (  KiB/s): min= 4661, max=449584, per=100.00%, avg=227397.40, stdev=41083.95, samples=956
iops        : min= 1165, max=112396, avg=56849.20, stdev=10271.03, samples=956
write: IOPS=56.8k, BW=222MiB/s (233MB/s)(26.0GiB/120005msec); 0 zone resets
    slat (usec): min=5, max=193496, avg= 7.74, stdev=173.75
    clat (usec): min=1027, max=668734, avg=9487.19, stdev=29832.94
    lat (usec): min=1032, max=668743, avg=9494.93, stdev=29834.50
    clat percentiles (usec):
    |  1.00th=[  1958],  5.00th=[  2606], 10.00th=[  3097], 20.00th=[  3949],
    | 30.00th=[  4359], 40.00th=[  4621], 50.00th=[  5014], 60.00th=[  5407],
    | 70.00th=[  5932], 80.00th=[  6783], 90.00th=[  8586], 95.00th=[ 12649],
    | 99.00th=[185598], 99.50th=[291505], 99.90th=[396362], 99.95th=[413139],
    | 99.99th=[505414]
bw (  KiB/s): min= 4458, max=446624, per=100.00%, avg=227231.99, stdev=41044.99, samples=956
iops        : min= 1114, max=111656, avg=56807.82, stdev=10261.29, samples=956
lat (usec)   : 500=0.01%, 750=0.01%, 1000=0.05%
lat (msec)   : 2=2.88%, 4=25.16%, 10=64.87%, 20=3.85%, 50=1.06%
lat (msec)   : 100=0.56%, 250=1.08%, 500=0.48%, 750=0.01%
cpu          : usr=4.87%, sys=22.71%, ctx=881312, majf=0, minf=58
IO depths    : 1=0.1%, 2=0.1%, 4=0.1%, 8=0.1%, 16=0.1%, 32=0.1%, >=64=100.0%
    submit    : 0=0.0%, 4=100.0%, 8=0.0%, 16=0.0%, 32=0.0%, 64=0.0%, >=64=0.0%
    complete  : 0=0.0%, 4=100.0%, 8=0.0%, 16=0.0%, 32=0.0%, 64=0.0%, >=64=0.1%
    issued rwts: total=6817922,6813261,0,0 short=0,0,0,0 dropped=0,0,0,0
    latency   : target=0, window=0, percentile=100.00%, depth=256

Run status group 0 (all jobs):
READ: bw=222MiB/s (233MB/s), 222MiB/s-222MiB/s (233MB/s-233MB/s), io=26.0GiB (27.9GB), run=120005-120005msec
WRITE: bw=222MiB/s (233MB/s), 222MiB/s-222MiB/s (233MB/s-233MB/s), io=26.0GiB (27.9GB), run=120005-120005msec

Disk stats (read/write):
nvme0n1: ios=6813017/6808536, sectors=54504160/54473512, merge=0/217, ticks=57156641/62842927, in_queue=120001754, util=76.88%

7z benchmark (Compressing and decompressing tasks)

To run this benchmark, just run 7z b:

7-Zip 23.01 (x64) : Copyright (c) 1999-2023 Igor Pavlov : 2023-06-20
64-bit locale=en_US.UTF-8 Threads:16 OPEN_MAX:1024

Compiler: 13.2.0 GCC 13.2.0: SSE2
Linux : 6.8.0-117-generic : #117-Ubuntu SMP PREEMPT_DYNAMIC Tue May  5 19:26:24 UTC 2026 : x86_64
PageSize:4KB THP:madvise hwcap:2 hwcap2:2
AMD Ryzen 7 7735HS with Radeon Graphics (A40F41) 

1T CPU Freq (MHz):  1355  1354  1354  1353  1620  2378  2378
8T CPU Freq (MHz): 734% 2134   773% 2248  

RAM size:   15226 MB,  # CPU hardware threads:  16
RAM usage:   3559 MB,  # Benchmark threads:     16

                    Compressing  |                  Decompressing
Dict     Speed Usage    R/U Rating  |      Speed Usage    R/U Rating
        KiB/s     %   MIPS   MIPS  |      KiB/s     %   MIPS   MIPS

22:      32930  1180   2715  32035  |     542792  1440   3215  46284
23:      56028  1345   4243  57086  |     679485  1443   4073  58780
24:      53996  1374   4226  58057  |     675271  1477   4012  59250
25:      50740  1353   4282  57934  |     650063  1464   3949  57837
----------------------------------  | ------------------------------
Avr:     48423  1313   3866  51278  |     636903  1456   3812  55538
Tot:            1385   3839  53408