In the recent years, numerous studies have been done on Stirling cycle and Stirling engine which have been resulted in different output power and engine thermal efficiency analyses. Finite speed thermodynamic analysis is one of the most prominent ways which considers external irreversibilities. In the present study, output power and engine thermal efficiency are optimized and total pressure losses are minimized using NSGA algorithm and finite speed thermodynamic analysis. The results are successfully verified against experimental data. (C) 2013 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.