Okay so last Tuesday I decided to compare Sune and DSG. Why? Because I kept hearing folks argue about which one was faster for certain tasks. Honestly, I didn't have a strong opinion yet, I just wanted to see for myself.
Getting Stuck Right Out the Gate
First thing was just getting Sune running. Pulled down the latest version, ran the setup script… bam! Error message straight away. Something about a missing dependency. Scratched my head for a good 10 minutes, searching forums. Turned out I needed this specific older version of a common library, not the new shiny one everyone uses now. Had to roll that back manually.
DSG? Easier on paper. Nice installer wizard. Click, click, next, next… finish! Feeling good. Launched it… and it just sat there. Frozen. Nada. Checked the logs, saw weird permission errors. Had to run it as admin. Not impressed. That felt sloppy.
The Actual Speed Test Mess
My plan was simple: feed both tools the exact same chunk of data and time how long they took to process it into the final format I needed.
- Round 1 (Sune): Set up the job config. It was kinda fiddly. Lots of command-line flags to remember. Got it going… and uh oh. Crashed halfway through. Log said it ran out of memory. sigh Went back, tweaked the config, gave it more RAM. Tried again. This time it finished. Timer said: 4 minutes 17 seconds.
- Round 2 (DSG): Launched the GUI. Configuration felt more visual. Loaded the same data file. Hit the big shiny “Process” button. Looked slick… for about 15 seconds. Then it slowed way down. Progress bar crawling. Finally finished. Timer said: 6 minutes 48 seconds. Way slower than Sune.
Okay, so Sune won on speed? Maybe not so fast.
The “Finished Product” Nightmare
Here's the kicker. The whole point was getting usable output, right?
- Sune's Output: Looked okay at first glance. But when I tried feeding it into the next step in my workflow? Broken. Incompatible formatting. Hidden errors. Took me another 30 minutes poking around the config file docs to find the magic option I missed that fixed the output structure.
- DSG's Output: Slower, sure. BUT. The output file worked perfectly first time. Plugged it straight into the next tool, no fuss.
So Sune was faster if you got the config exactly perfect the first time. Which I hadn't. DSG was slower but felt more “idiot proof” for actually getting a correct result.
Bottom Line After Coffee and Head Scratching
Sitting there feeling kinda stupid. Speed alone didn't tell the story.
- If I need raw speed and I'm doing this process a zillion times (and I've memorized every config flag), maybe Sune wins.
- But if I just need it to work reliably without wasting my afternoon chasing config bugs, especially for a one-off job? DSG, even with the turtle pace, saved me time in the end.
It depends! Annoying answer, I know. This stuff always looks simpler until you get your hands dirty. Now I get why the forums are full of arguments. Both got quirks. Maybe I just need more coffee before tackling config files next time.
