# How to Compare 2 Objects in JavaScript 🎉

Objects are reference types so you can’t just use === or == to compare 2 objects. One quick way to compare if 2 objects have the same key value, is using JSON.stringify. Another way is using Lodash isEqual function 👏

const k1 = { fruit: '🥝' };
const k2 = { fruit: '🥝' };

// Using JavaScript
JSON.stringify(k1) === JSON.stringify(k2); // true

// Using Lodash
_.isEqual(k1, k2); // true

Deep Nested Comparison
Which one should I use?
Community Suggestions
- ES6 Way for comparing 2 objects
- JSON.stringify vs Lodash's isEqual Performance
Resources

# Deep Nested Comparison

Yup, the 2 ways also work for deep nested objects.

const one = {
  fruit: '🥝',
  nutrients: {
    energy: '255kJ',
    minerals: {
      name: 'calcium',
    },
  },
};

const two = {
  fruit: '🥝',
  nutrients: {
    energy: '255kJ',
    minerals: {
      name: 'calcium',
    },
  },
};

// Using JavaScript
JSON.stringify(one) === JSON.stringify(two); // true

// Using Lodash
_.isEqual(one, two); // true

# Which one should I use?

Well that depends. For JSON.stringify(), the order matters. So if the key-value pair are ordered differently in the two objects but are the same, it will return false. Whereas it doesn't matter in Lodash isEqual, it will return true as along as the key-value pair exists.

Here's my recommendation. For a quick and dirty solution, I'd use JSON.stringify(). But for a more robust solution that cover more of those odd edge cases, use the Lodash way.

const one = {
  fruit: '🥝',
  energy: '255kJ',
};

const two = {
  energy: '255kJ',
  fruit: '🥝',
};

// Using JavaScript
JSON.stringify(one) === JSON.stringify(two); // false

// Using Lodash
_.isEqual(one, two); // true

# Community Suggestions

# ES6 Way for comparing 2 objects

This is a solution suggested by @mustafauzun0. Few things to note though, it won’t work with nested objects and the order of the keys are important. The idea behind this is similar to the stringify way. It coverts the object into a string and compare if the strings are a match. Essentially it's comparing the equality of two strings. That's why the order matters.

const k1 = { fruit: '🥝' };
const k2 = { fruit: '🥝' };

Object.entries(k1).toString() === Object.entries(k2).toString();
// true

Thanks: @mustafauzun0

# JSON.stringify vs Lodash's isEqual Performance

Cole Turner: Worth noting that objects don’t guarantee sort order, and stringify is going to cost more in performance because it has to serialize the whole object whereas lodash can exit early if it finds a mismatched key. This comes up in interviews 🙂

Thanks: @coleturner

blnkdotspace: Lodash is considerably faster. Because lodash will quit soon as it reaches the first difference, but stringify goes right till the end unnecessarily. If you have small arrays it's okay but for my personal use cases with more than 1000 events/products in a list I wouldn't ever use Stringify.

Thanks: @blnkdotspace