Thread:Mathmagician/@comment-3562424-20121121052230/@comment-4674838-20121122012505

That's honestly an impossible question to answer. Mergesort is better in some cases. Quicksort is better for others.

In general:
 * Quicksort tends to be faster than other sorting algorithms it competes with in many cases. Not always, but this is a general trend.
 * Other sorting algorithms that compete with quicksort (such as mergesort and heapsort) have nice properties that quicksort doesn't that make the speed difference worth the tradeoff in many cases.

Beyond that, you'd have to study sorting algorithms to talk about what those "nice properties" are and why they're worth the tradeoff in speed. You'd also have to consider what programming language / platform you're targeting, as the answer could be different depending on that.