PyPy 2.6 Released, ~7x Faster Than CPython

Version 2.6 of the PyPy JIT-compiler-based interpreter for Python has been released. With PyPy 2.6 there's some Python compatibility improvements along with Numpy improvements and preliminary support for a new lightweight stats profiler.

The new lightweight statistical profiler found in PyPy 2.6 is vmprof and is designed to accomodate profiling JIT'ed code.

When it comes to better performance with PyPy 2.6, there's some improvement in frame sizes, internal refactoring and cleanups for yielding better JIT performance, and improved I/O performance out of the zlib and bz2 modules. With the continued work on their JIT optimizations, the PyPy developers are reporting that with their benchmark suite they are now over seven times faster than CPython!

Those wishing to learn more about PyPy 2.6.0 can read the official release announcement.