How to check if two JavaScript objects have identical properties

Other Questions JavaScript
1

I’m trying to figure out the proper method for checking if two objects contain the same property values in JavaScript.

Here’s what I’m working with:

var player1 = {username: "gamer", team: "alpha"};
var player2 = {username: "gamer", team: "alpha"};
var result = player1 == player2;
console.log(result); // returns false

I understand that objects are only equal when they reference the same memory location, but I need to compare their actual content instead.

I found this approach that seems to work:

var result = JSON.stringify(player1) == JSON.stringify(player2);
console.log(result); // returns true

Is this the standard way to handle object comparison, or are there better alternatives I should consider?

2

the JSON.stringify trick works but its pretty hacky. property order will trip you up - {a:1, b:2} and {b:2, a:1} wont match even tho they’re identical objects. for actual projects, just compare each property with === or use something like ramdas equals function. much more reliable.

3

JSON.stringify breaks with property order issues and can’t handle functions or dates. I’ve hit this wall so many times in production.

The real issue isn’t comparing two objects once - it’s doing it efficiently when you’re processing thousands of user profiles, game states, or API responses. You need something that actually works.

I stopped writing custom comparison logic and started automating the whole workflow instead. Set up flows that handle deep comparison, validate data types, log mismatches, and trigger alerts when objects don’t match what you expect.

This saved me weeks during a user data migration across different database schemas. The automation caught edge cases my manual functions missed - null vs undefined, empty arrays, nested objects with different structures.

You can build comparison workflows that adapt to your specific structures and business rules. Way cleaner than maintaining comparison utilities in your codebase.

4

I hit this same issue building state management for a web app. JSON.stringify breaks with anything complex, and custom deep comparison functions get messy fast. I used Object.entries() to loop through properties and compare them directly. For shallow objects like your player example - count the keys first, then check each key-value pair matches. Property order doesn’t matter since you’re matching by key names. For nested stuff, I switched to Lodash’s isEqual after wasting hours on edge cases with dates, arrays, and nulls. Performance is fine unless you’re constantly comparing huge objects, and it catches all the weird JS quirks your manual functions will miss.

5

Deep equality comparison gets messy with nested objects and arrays. Found this out the hard way comparing user configs with multiple nesting levels. JSON.stringify breaks with property ordering and can’t handle functions or Date objects. Here’s what worked: build a recursive function that checks if both objects have the same key count, then loops through each property with typeof checks first. Use strict equality for primitives, recurse for objects. Handle arrays separately - check length, then compare each element. This gives you full control over comparison logic and beats serialization methods performance-wise. You can extend it for special cases like ignoring certain properties or custom rules for specific data types.

6

Honestly, for simple objects like yours just use Object.keys(player1).every(key => player1[key] === player2[key]) and check if they’ve got the same number of keys first. Way cleaner than stringify and won’t break with property order like everyone mentioned.

7

JSON.stringify works for basic stuff, but it’ll bite you. Objects with the same properties in different orders? It says they’re different. Got functions, undefined values, or circular references? It breaks completely. You’re better off writing a custom function that compares properties recursively. I use lodash’s isEqual in production - it handles all the weird edge cases. You could loop through Object.keys and compare each property yourself, but that gets ugly fast once you hit nested objects or arrays.