echo vs printf

 time for i in {1..5000}; do echo -n $i; done 

real    0m0.029s
user    0m0.025s
sys    0m0.004s

time for i in {1..5000}; do printf $i; done 

real    0m0.026s
user    0m0.023s
sys    0m0.004s

time for i in {1..5000}; do /usr/bin/echo -n $i; done 

real    0m3.081s
user    0m2.279s
sys    0m1.012s

time for i in {1..5000}; do /usr/bin/printf $i; done

real    0m3.053s
user    0m2.265s
sys    0m1.001s

 du -sh  /usr/bin/echo /usr/bin/printf
44K    /usr/bin/echo
64K    /usr/bin/printf