--- title: Benchmarking energy usage and performance of Polars and... description: Researchers from Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam benchmarked energy usage and performance of Polars versus pandas across 28 data analysis tasks, including... canonical: https://daily.dev/posts/benchmarking-energy-usage-and-performance-of-polars-and-pandas-a5suovg0k twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:site: @dailydotdev og:type: website og:site_name: daily.dev og:title: Benchmarking energy usage and performance of Polars and pandas | daily.dev og:description: Researchers from Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam benchmarked energy usage and performance of Polars versus pandas across 28 data analysis tasks, including... og:url: https://daily.dev/posts/benchmarking-energy-usage-and-performance-of-polars-and-pandas-a5suovg0k og:image: https://api.daily.dev/og/posts/A5SUOvG0K.png og:image:alt: Benchmarking energy usage and performance of Polars and pandas og:image:width: 1200 og:image:height: 630 og:locale: en --- > ## Documentation Index > Fetch the complete documentation index at: https://daily.dev/llms.txt > Use this file to discover all available pages before exploring further. # Benchmarking energy usage and performance of Polars and pandas **[Polars Blog](https://daily.dev/sources/polars)** · 7 min read · 0 upvotes · 0 comments ## Summary Researchers from Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam benchmarked energy usage and performance of Polars versus pandas across 28 data analysis tasks, including synthetic workloads and the TPC-H benchmark, on small and large dataframes. Polars consumed roughly 8 times less energy than pandas in synthetic tasks with large dataframes and about 63% of pandas' energy usage on large TPC-H workloads, though pandas held a slight energy advantage on small dataframes. The study attributes Polars' efficiency to better multi-core CPU utilization and finds a strong correlation between energy usage and execution time. The lead researcher, Ivano Malavolta, recommends Polars for energy-efficient, fast data analysis on large datasets and urges developers to weigh energy costs when choosing libraries. ## Full article daily.dev links to this article rather than hosting it. Read it at the original source: ## Questions this post answers ### Is Polars more energy efficient than pandas for large dataframes? Yes, a Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam study found Polars uses roughly 8 times less energy than pandas in synthetic data analysis tasks on large dataframes, and about 63% of the energy pandas requires on large TPC-H benchmark workloads. Pandas showed a slight energy advantage only on small dataframes. The efficiency gain is attributed to Polars' better utilization of multi-core CPUs. _Comparing dataframe libraries for a data pipeline is easier with benchmark research surfaced on daily.dev._ ### Why is Polars faster and more energy efficient than pandas on large datasets? Polars better harnesses multi-core processors for concurrent data operations, which speeds up processing and reduces energy consumption compared to pandas. Researchers found a statistically significant negative correlation between energy efficiency and CPU usage for pandas, suggesting pandas underutilizes available cores while Polars' parallel processing scales more effectively on large, complex computations. _Developers weighing performance trade-offs between data libraries can track findings like these on daily.dev._ ## Similar posts on daily.dev - [Should AI Developers Make the Switch from Polars to Pandas?](https://daily.dev/posts/should-ai-developers-make-the-switch-from-polars-to-pandas--3mrkktnhr) · Towards Data Science · 0 upvotes · 0 comments - [Polars vs pandas: What's the Difference? – Real Python](https://daily.dev/posts/polars-vs-pandas-what-s-the-difference-real-python-0uhjx2vub) · Real Python · 0 upvotes · 0 comments - [Pandas Should Go Extinct](https://daily.dev/posts/pandas-should-go-extinct-1jqzeauiq) · Lobsters · 0 upvotes · 0 comments - [Polars vs DuckDB vs Pandas: Benchmark on 33 Million Rows](https://daily.dev/posts/polars-vs-duckdb-vs-pandas-benchmark-on-33-million-rows-p8chasjqs) · Medium · 0 upvotes · 0 comments --- Tags: [#python](https://daily.dev/tags/python), [#pandas](https://daily.dev/tags/pandas), [#polars](https://daily.dev/tags/polars) [View this post on daily.dev](https://daily.dev/posts/benchmarking-energy-usage-and-performance-of-polars-and-pandas-a5suovg0k) ```json {"@context":"https://schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"Organization","@id":"https://daily.dev/#organization","name":"daily.dev","url":"https://daily.dev","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://daily.dev/apple-touch-icon.png","width":180,"height":180},"sameAs":["https://twitter.com/dailydotdev","https://github.com/dailydotdev","https://www.linkedin.com/company/daily-dev-ltd"]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https://daily.dev/#website","url":"https://daily.dev","name":"daily.dev","publisher":{"@id":"https://daily.dev/#organization"},"potentialAction":{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https://daily.dev/search?q={search_term_string}"},"query-input":"required name=search_term_string"}}]} {"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"TechArticle","headline":"Benchmarking energy usage and performance of Polars and pandas","url":"https://daily.dev/posts/benchmarking-energy-usage-and-performance-of-polars-and-pandas-a5suovg0k","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://daily.dev/posts/benchmarking-energy-usage-and-performance-of-polars-and-pandas-a5suovg0k"},"datePublished":"2026-08-16T08:53:14.963Z","dateModified":"2026-08-16T08:54:11.255Z","description":"Researchers from Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam benchmarked energy usage and performance of Polars versus pandas across 28 data analysis tasks, including...","image":"https://media.daily.dev/image/upload/f_auto,q_auto/v1/posts/5434e7bec80a8efdf8c46b2f6f76f432?_a=AQAEuop","thumbnailUrl":"https://media.daily.dev/image/upload/f_auto,q_auto/v1/posts/5434e7bec80a8efdf8c46b2f6f76f432?_a=AQAEuop","isAccessibleForFree":true,"articleSection":"Polars Blog","inLanguage":"en","publisher":{"@type":"Organization","name":"daily.dev","url":"https://daily.dev","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://daily.dev/apple-touch-icon.png","width":180,"height":180}},"author":{"@type":"Organization","name":"Polars Blog","logo":"https://media.daily.dev/image/upload/s--xo60W3UW--/c_limit,w_256/f_auto,q_auto/v1786870390/logos/polars?_a=BAMAMicg0","url":"https://daily.dev/sources/polars"},"commentCount":0,"discussionUrl":"https://daily.dev/posts/benchmarking-energy-usage-and-performance-of-polars-and-pandas-a5suovg0k","interactionStatistic":[{"@type":"InteractionCounter","interactionType":{"@type":"LikeAction"},"userInteractionCount":0},{"@type":"InteractionCounter","interactionType":{"@type":"CommentAction"},"userInteractionCount":0}],"keywords":"python,pandas,polars","timeRequired":"PT7M"} {"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"BreadcrumbList","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https://daily.dev"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"Polars Blog","item":"https://daily.dev/sources/polars"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":3,"name":"Benchmarking energy usage and performance of Polars and pandas"}]} {"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"FAQPage","@id":"https://daily.dev/posts/benchmarking-energy-usage-and-performance-of-polars-and-pandas-a5suovg0k#faq","mainEntity":[{"@type":"Question","name":"Is Polars more energy efficient than pandas for large dataframes?","acceptedAnswer":{"@type":"Answer","text":"Yes, a Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam study found Polars uses roughly 8 times less energy than pandas in synthetic data analysis tasks on large dataframes, and about 63% of the energy pandas requires on large TPC-H benchmark workloads. 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