numpy np.array versus np.matrix (performance)

There is a general discusion on SciPy.org and on this question.

To compare performance, I did the following in iPython. It turns out that arrays are significantly faster.

In [1]: import numpy as np
In [2]: %%timeit
   ...: v = np.matrix([1, 2, 3, 4])
100000 loops, best of 3: 16.9 us per loop

In [3]: %%timeit
   ...: w = np.array([1, 2, 3, 4])
100000 loops, best of 3: 7.54 us per loop

Therefore numpy arrays seem to have faster performance than numpy matrices.

Versions used:

Numpy: 1.7.1

IPython: 0.13.2

Python: 2.7

I added some more tests, and it appears that an array is considerably faster than matrix when array/matrices are small, but the difference gets smaller for larger data structures:

Small (4x4):

In [11]: a = [[1,2,3,4],[5,6,7,8]]

In [12]: aa = np.array(a)

In [13]: ma = np.matrix(a)

In [14]: %timeit aa.sum()
1000000 loops, best of 3: 1.77 us per loop

In [15]: %timeit ma.sum()
100000 loops, best of 3: 15.1 us per loop

In [16]: %timeit np.dot(aa, aa.T)
1000000 loops, best of 3: 1.72 us per loop

In [17]: %timeit ma * ma.T
100000 loops, best of 3: 7.46 us per loop

Larger (100x100):

In [19]: aa = np.arange(10000).reshape(100,100)

In [20]: ma = np.matrix(aa)

In [21]: %timeit aa.sum()
100000 loops, best of 3: 9.18 us per loop

In [22]: %timeit ma.sum()
10000 loops, best of 3: 22.9 us per loop

In [23]: %timeit np.dot(aa, aa.T)
1000 loops, best of 3: 1.26 ms per loop

In [24]: %timeit ma * ma.T
1000 loops, best of 3: 1.24 ms per loop

Notice that matrices are actually slightly faster for multiplication.

I believe that what I am getting here is consistent with what @Jaime is explaining the comment.