diff --git a/.gitignore b/.gitignore
index 3031d0b..942b7a0 100644
--- a/.gitignore
+++ b/.gitignore
@@ -1,5 +1,6 @@
 vendor/
 tests/coverage/
+perf/docs/
 .php_cs.cache
 
 
diff --git a/RoboFile.php b/RoboFile.php
index 89773a7..6a032af 100644
--- a/RoboFile.php
+++ b/RoboFile.php
@@ -60,6 +60,16 @@ class RoboFile extends \Robo\Tasks {
         return $this->runTests($exec, "typical", array_merge(["--coverage-html", self::BASE_TEST."coverage"], $args));
     }
 
+    /** Runs a performance evaluation.
+     * 
+     * The performance of the library's basic functionality is tested against 
+     * both IntlCodePointBreakIterator and preg_split
+    */
+    public function perf(array $args): Result {
+        $execpath = realpath(self::BASE."perf/perf.php");
+        return $this->taskExec("php")->arg($execpath)->args($args)->run();
+    }
+
     protected function findCoverageEngine(): string {
         $null = null;
         $code = 0;
diff --git a/perf/perf.php b/perf/perf.php
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..7b3ff0e
--- /dev/null
+++ b/perf/perf.php
@@ -0,0 +1,99 @@
+<?php
+/** @license MIT
+ * Copyright 2018 J. King et al.
+ * See LICENSE and AUTHORS files for details */
+
+declare(strict_types=1);
+namespace MensBeam\UTF8;
+
+require __DIR__."/../tests/bootstrap.php";
+
+$files = [
+    'HTML single-page specification' => ["https://html.spec.whatwg.org/", "html.html"],
+    'English article on Canada' => ["https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Canada", "canada.html"],
+    'Greek article on Greece' => ["https://el.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ελλάδα", "greece.html"],
+    'Japanese article on Japan' => ["https://ja.wikipedia.org/wiki/日本", "japan.html"],
+];
+
+$tests = [
+    'Intl code points' => ["intl", function(string $text): int {
+        $t = 0;
+        $i = \IntlBreakIterator::createCodePointInstance();
+        $i->setText($text);
+        foreach ($i as $o) {
+            $p = $i->getLastCodePoint();
+            $t++;
+        }
+        return $t;
+    }],
+    'Native code points' => ["", function(string $text): int {
+        $t = 0;
+        $pos = 0;
+        $eof = strlen($text);
+        while ($pos <= $eof) {
+            $p = UTF8::ord($text, $pos, $pos);
+            $t++;
+        }
+        return $t;
+    }],
+    'Intl characters' => ["intl", function(string $text): int {
+        $t = 0;
+        $i = \IntlBreakIterator::createCodePointInstance();
+        $i->setText($text);
+        foreach ($i as $b) {
+            $p = \IntlChar::chr($i->getLastCodePoint());
+            $t++;
+        }
+        return $t;
+    }],
+    'Native characters' => ["", function(string $text): int {
+        $t = 0;
+        $pos = 0;
+        $eof = strlen($text);
+        while ($pos <= $eof) {
+            $p = UTF8::get($text, $pos, $pos);
+            $t++;
+        }
+        return $t;
+    }],
+    'PCRE split characters' => ["pcre", function(string $text): int {
+        $t = 0;
+        foreach (preg_split('//u',  $text) as $c) {
+            $p = $c;
+            $t++;
+        }
+        return $t;
+    }],
+];
+
+if (!file_exists(__DIR__."/docs/")) {
+    mkdir(__DIR__."/docs/");
+}
+
+foreach($files as $fName => $file) {
+    list($url, $file) = $file;
+    $file = __DIR__."/docs/$file";
+    if (!file_exists($file)) {
+        $text = file_get_contents($url);
+        file_put_contents($file, $text);
+    } else {
+        $text = file_get_contents($file);
+    }
+    echo "$fName:\n";
+    foreach($tests as $tName => $test) {
+        list($req, $test) = $test;
+        if ($req && !extension_loaded($req)) {
+            continue;
+        } else {
+            echo "    $tName: ";
+            $t = [];
+            for ($a = 0; $a < 5; $a++) {
+                $s = microtime(true);
+                $n = $test($text);
+                $t[$a] = microtime(true) - $s;
+            }
+            $t = array_sum($t) / sizeof($t);
+            echo number_format($t, 3)." ($n characters)\n";
+        }
+    }
+}