Why is memory allocation on heap MUCH slower than on stack?

Question

I have been told this many times. But I don\'t know WHY...What extra cost is involved when allocating memory from heap? Is it hardware related? Is it related to CPU cycles?

Answer 1

Because the heap is a far more complicated data structure than the stack.

For many architectures, allocating memory on the stack is just a matter of changing the stack pointer, i.e. it's one instruction. Allocating memory on the heap involves looking for a big enough block, splitting it, and managing the "book-keeping" that allows things like free() in a different order.

Memory allocated on the stack is guaranteed to be deallocated when the scope (typically the function) exits, and it's not possible to deallocate just some of it.