Your expectation is correct. The Java version is more tuned. Here https://github.com/dhartunian/1brcgo/?tab=readme-ov-file#lea..., you can find a version that runs in 1.108 and is almost 3x better than the one you quoted. I think one can reduce it even further. In the end, it depends on how fast the executable can boot up and execute the code. At some point, JVM will lose because it takes quite some time just to initialize the JVM, whereas Go executables can boot up very fast. Here you can see a comparison of Hello World Programs: https://github.com/qznc/hello-benchmark?tab=readme-ov-file#h.... JVM takes a whopping 596 ms to boot up and print Hello World, whereas Go just requires 149 ms.