# Pastebin wgJ5wxl9
(pypy37) dev@brick:~/Downloads/awnsample/dockerbuild$ cat xx.py

import time
from cffi import FFI
try:
    import _foo_ffi
except:
    from cffi import FFI
    foo_ffi = FFI()
    foo_ffi.cdef("""
        void* malloc(long);
        void free(void*);
        long strlen(char*);
    """)
    foo_ffi.set_source("_foo_ffi", "")
    foo_ffi.compile()
    import _foo_ffi

ffi = FFI()
l = [None]
t0 = time.time()
for i in range(10000000):
    x = ffi.new("char[]", 1024)
    x[100] = b'\x00'
    _foo_ffi.lib.strlen(x)
    l[-1] = x

print("FFI.new %.2f" % (time.time() - t0))

t1 = time.time()

for i in range(10000000):
    x = _foo_ffi.lib.malloc(1024)
    ffi.cast("char*", x)[100] = b'\x00'
    _foo_ffi.lib.strlen(x)
    _foo_ffi.lib.free(x)
print("Raw malloc %.2f" % (time.time() - t1))
(pypy37) dev@brick:~/Downloads/awnsample/dockerbuild$ python xx.py 
FFI.new 5.02
Raw malloc 1.07
(pypy37) dev@brick:~/Downloads/awnsample/dockerbuild$