Performance Comparison of SimBlock to NS-3 Blockchain Simulators

Blockchain is a technology that is in the hype and growing rapidly. Data that has entered the blockchain cannot be changed and tampered with, and this feature makes blockchain technology guaranteed in its integrity and security. However, evaluating a blockchain network configuration, consensus, design, or architecture has its problems due to the vast area of the blockchain network and the massive number of nodes. A simulator is the right choice for this case. Blockchain simulators that exist today include SimBlock and NS-3 blockchain simulator from Arthur Gervais. This study compares the two simulators' performance in terms of CPU, memory, and simulation time usage. Equalize all the two simulators' parameters, using the same configuration for the virtual machines used. After that, calculate the CPU and memory usage using the Sysstat program on Ubuntu, while the simulation time is taken from both simulator's output. This simulator evaluated by varying the target block from 500 to 5000 with 1000 nodes on the network. The experiment result of SimBlock CPU usage was ± 10% higher than NS-3, while SimBlock memory usage was also ± 14% greater than NS-3. The result of NS-3 simulation time requires the highest time of 55188.3s, while Simblock only takes 68.242s for the same number of blocks and nodes. The difference in CPU power is because NS-3 simulates the mining process. In contrast, the SimBlock mining process is not simulated but calculated using the user input value on the average mining power.