Bubble Sort vs Insertion Sort
Same 110 values, same shuffle, same speed. Insertion Sort finishes first and turns gold: 5,689 operations to 8,678.
The numbers
- Bubble operations
- 8,678
- Insertion operations
- 5,689
- Bubble average
- n²
- Insertion average
- n²
- Bubble worst
- n²
- Insertion worst
- n²
Bubble Sort
Bubble Sort walks through the list swapping neighbours that are out of order, until a pass makes no swaps. More on Bubble Sort.
Insertion Sort
Insertion Sort takes each value in turn and slides it left until it sits in the right place. More on Insertion Sort.
FAQ
Which is faster, Bubble Sort or Insertion Sort?
On this shuffle of 110 values, Insertion Sort needed 5,689 operations and Bubble Sort needed 8,678, about 1.5× as many. On average Bubble Sort is n² and Insertion Sort is n².
Which one is stable?
Both are stable.
How is the race fair?
Both algorithms start from the same shuffle and run the same number of operations per frame. Every comparison, swap and write counts as one operation, so the one that needs fewer operations finishes first.