It was just pointed out to me that micropython starts an order of magnitude faster than both python2 and python3:

    $ time ./micropython -c 'print(1)' 
    1
    ./micropython -c 'print(1)'  0.00s user 0.00s system 0% cpu 0.002 total
    
    $ time ./python2 -c 'print(1)'
    1
    python2 -c 'print(1)'  0.01s user 0.00s system 52% cpu 0.019 total

    $ time ./python3 -c 'print(1)'
    1
    python3 -c 'print(1)'  0.03s user 0.00s system 85% cpu 0.035 total