Compare performace of WPF Converters, DataTriggers and Direct Binding

Hello,

I have made some performance tests with DataTriggers and Converters. For testing purposes I have chosen Visibility property. In first case I have binded Visibility property to IsVisible view model boolean property with standard BooleanToVisibilityConverter converter.

<Border Visibility="{Binding IsVisible, Converter={StaticResource BooleanToVisibilityConverter}}" Background="Blue" />

Next case was written with DataTrigger

<Border Background="Red">
  <Border.Style>
    <Style TargetType="Border">
      <Setter Property="Visibility" Value="Visible" />
      <Style.Triggers>
        <DataTrigger Binding="{Binding IsVisibleDataTrigger}" Value="False">
          <Setter Property="Visibility" Value="Collapsed" />
        </DataTrigger>
      </Style.Triggers>
    </Style>
  </Border.Style&
</Border>

And the last one is the simple binding to Visibility view model property of System.Windows.Visibility type:

<Border Visibility="{Binding Visibility}" Background="Green" />

To test all cases I have run following code in separate thread:

await Task.Factory.StartNew(
() =>
  {
    int N = 1000000;
    Stopwatch timer = new Stopwatch();
    timer.Start();
    for (int i = 0; i < N; i++)
    {
      viewModel.IsVisible = !viewModel.IsVisible;
    }

    timer.Stop();
    resultConveter = timer.ElapsedMilliseconds;

    timer.Reset();
    timer.Start();
    for (int i = 0; i < N; i++)
    {
      viewModel.IsVisibleDataTrigger = !viewModel.IsVisibleDataTrigger;
    }

    timer.Stop();
    resultDataTrigger = timer.ElapsedMilliseconds;

    timer.Reset();
    timer.Start();
    bool isVisible = viewModel.Visibility == Visibility.Visible;
    for (int i = 0; i < N; i++)
    {
      viewModel.Visibility = isVisible ? Visibility.Collapsed : Visibility.Visible;
      isVisible = !isVisible;
    }

    timer.Stop();
    resultBinding = timer.ElapsedMilliseconds;
  });

Here is results of this testing (lower is better):

As we can see Binding is the fastest, but by using converters with boolean view model property you will make you view model code cleaner.