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Frontend Development
What are the best client-side JavaScript module loaders?
13
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Considered
216
User
Recs.
Feb 10, 2023
Last
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9
Options
Considered
Best client-side JavaScript module loaders
Price
Last Updated
--
SystemJS
free
Feb 10, 2023
--
stealjs
-
Jan 20, 2017
31
RequireJS
Free
Sep 22, 2021
--
jspm.io
free
Jan 2, 2018
--
Qoopido.demand
Free
Mar 12, 2019
See Full List
--
SystemJS
My Rec
ommendation
for
SystemJS
My Recommendation for
SystemJS
All
6
Pros
6
Top
Pro
•••
Supports multiple module formats
SystemJS supports AMD, CommonJS and ES6 modules.
See More
Top
Pro
•••
Can load static assets through plugins
System.js supports loading static assets such as images or stylesheets through loader plugins.
See More
Top
Pro
•••
No tools needed in dev, can seamlessly bundle when moving to prod
See More
Top
Pro
•••
Concise, Granular Configuration
See More
Top
Pro
•••
Easy to migrate to
A migration from RequireJS + loadCSS to only SystemJS can be done in only 2.5 hours.
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Top
Pro
•••
Even its dev. build is smaller than most of its competitors prod. build
With ~15Kb, its development build can load almost any type of JS module.
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free
Recommend
13
6
--
stealjs
My Rec
ommendation
for
stealjs
My Recommendation for
stealjs
All
10
Pros
9
Cons
1
Top
Pro
•••
Supports several modules types
StealJS has support for AMD, CJS and ES6 module types.
See More
Top
Con
•••
Changing the order of require statements causes unexpected behavior
Sometimes changing the order of the require statements in a JavaScript file loaded with stealjs may cause unexpected problems or even breaking the code altogether.
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Top
Pro
•••
Support for LESS and CSS
StealJS can also load CSS and LESS files in addition to JavaScript modules.
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Top
Pro
•••
Mix ES6 AMD and CommonJS
StealJS supports using all three module types, even in the same file.
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Top
Pro
•••
ES6 module support
StealJs supports ES6 modules and their import and export methods without having to compile them to CommonJS require.
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Top
Pro
•••
Support for ES6
StealJS supports transpiling of ES6 code to ES5
See More
Top
Pro
•••
Supports all systemjs based plugins
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Top
Pro
•••
Supports source maps for easier debugging
Source maps allow for easier debugging, because they allow you to find the problems within the origin files instead of the output file.
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Top
Pro
•••
Share the same modules client-side and server-side
Because StealJS allows you to use the same require() function as node.js, you can easily share modules between the client-side and server-side.
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Top
Pro
•••
Tap into npm's huge module ecosystem
Using StelaJS opens you up to npm, that has over 80k modules of which a great amount work both client-side and server-side. And the list is growing rapidly.
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Get it
here
Recommend
5
1
31
RequireJS
My Rec
ommendation
for
RequireJS
My Recommendation for
RequireJS
All
20
Experiences
1
Pros
13
Cons
6
Top
Pro
•••
Works with basically every desktop browser, even IE6
RequireJS supports IE6+, FF2+, Safari3.2+, Chrome3+ & Opera 10+.
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Top
Con
•••
On its way out
Latest stable release is 2 months old with little development occurring on Github.
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Luiz Barni's Experience
RequireJS was good, but SystemJS was a lot better.
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Top
Pro
•••
Well documented
The RequireJS module loader is extremely well documented. So no matter whether you're a pro at JS based web development or just a newbie, you will find the documentation very helpful whenever you're stuck or just starting out. Everything is well-defined and logically placed in proper sections in a manner such that it is very easy to understand.
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Top
Con
•••
AMD syntax is inferior to the CommonJS and ES6 import syntaxes
Harder to read. Easy to make a mistake. ES6' import syntax is the future.
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Top
Pro
•••
You don't need a server to get started
One of the best advantages of RequireJS over Browserify is that you don't need a nodejs environment to get started. Just "require" your dependencies and it takes care of loading them. By contrast, Browserify requires a running NodeJS implementation so you can build your one monolithic file, then you can push the file to your static web server.
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Top
Con
•••
Poor handling of circular references
If you create a circular reference between two files, it will typically quietly break - the reference on one side will end up undefined.
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Top
Pro
•••
Has a RequireJS optimizer
After building all the modules to be loaded, the built files can be optimized as well (minified and concatenated), even though this is a completely optional step, but doing so could be a lot beneficial for your site's performance.
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Top
Con
•••
AMD spec uses globals
The global ‘require’ and ‘define’ methods make namespace collisions likely if building a 3rd party plugin. AMD loaders line require are best if you control the site.
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Top
Pro
•••
Lazily-loaded JS can access already loaded modules by name
Yet its run-time is still competitive if not better than Webpack's at higher density levels of modules.
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Top
Con
•••
Can't handle CSS dependencies
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Top
Pro
•••
Always running site unbundled
With other loaders, aka browserify, it isn't possible to run your site without first bundling. Require.js can load everything async which is pretty powerful.
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Top
Con
•••
Not the best solution for sharing client-side and server-side code.
RequireJS is awesome for bundling and managing dependencies in an async manner. But the server-side needs neither of this killer features. Because of this it's not as good if you're building a library that should work on both client and server (i.e. PouchDB).
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Top
Pro
•••
Supports nested dependencies
If your project has nested dependencies, you won't have to worry about resolving them at all. Because RequireJS will do that for you.
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Top
Pro
•••
Well tested
Since the RequireJS is quite popular among the dev community, that automatically means that problems get sorted out very quickly and most of the core code has already been tested.
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Top
Pro
•••
AMD & CJS support
While RequireJS is mainly an AMD implementation, it can, with rare exceptions, implement CJS as well.
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Top
Pro
•••
Simple
Because of its easy to understand documentation, the RequireJS module loader is super simple to use; module definitions are as easy as defining just a key/value pair.
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Top
Pro
•••
Can load new modules without being recompiled
It's the one of the few modules in this category that can handle IOC-style dependency injection. The others work well for apps that have knowable dependency lists at compile time, but this is the only one that can load new modules without being recompiled.
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Top
Pro
•••
Easy to do hot reloading in development mode
Hot reloading is a very useful Developer Experience feature of a module loader system
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Top
Pro
•••
Supports hot RE-loading
Persistent console logging, generational statefulness, promotes stateless DOM development.
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Free
Recommend
42
21
--
jspm.io
My Rec
ommendation
for
jspm.io
My Recommendation for
jspm.io
All
4
Pros
3
Cons
1
Top
Pro
•••
Can install package from GitHub or NPM
It has its own registry as well for common libraries but you don't have to use it. Add directly from npm or GitHub source.
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Top
Con
•••
NPM is the way to go. You don't need the overhead of JSPM.
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Top
Pro
•••
Inherit the pros of System.js
because it uses System.js
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Top
Pro
•••
Allow multiple versions of the same package
It even supports circular dependencies.
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free
Recommend
2
4
--
Qoopido.demand
My Rec
ommendation
for
Qoopido.demand
My Recommendation for
Qoopido.demand
All
16
Pros
16
Top
Pro
•••
Supports localStorage caching
Modules will get loaded via XHR/XDR and get cached in localStorage to prevent further requests which improves performance escpecially on mobile
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Top
Pro
•••
Fallback URLs
Any type of dependency can have multiple URLs defined to be used as fallback.
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Top
Pro
•••
Additional support for loading HTML, CSS, JSON, and text
Loading is dealt with via handlers that are themselves modules (dynamically loaded and cached). Qoopido.demand comes with support for its own module format built-in and offers handlers for css, json and text. Due to handlersbeing modules themselves it is really easy to write custom handlers.
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Top
Pro
•••
Optional support for SRI (sub resource integrity)
Support for SHA256, 384 and 512 identity checks for all types of loaded modules was added in version 2.0.7
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Top
Pro
•••
Offers internal auto-bundling to reduce the number of requests
By taking advantage of auto-bundling, it means that demand itself will combine requests without the user having to manually define a bundle.
See More
Top
Pro
•••
Supports sourcemaps
See More
Top
Pro
•••
Optional lz-string compression of localStorage cache content
Cached modules can be optionally & automatically compressed with lz-string loading a plugin (included in the distribution) either globally or on a per module or even per path/part of path base.
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Top
Pro
•••
Per module setting of cache parameters
Version 1.1.2 of Qoopido.demand adds the possibility to not only set global caching parameters valid for all modules but allows for fine grained cache control on a per module basis.
See More
Top
Pro
•••
Can load new modules without being recompiled
It's the one of the few modules in this category that can handle IOC-style dependency injection. The others work well for apps that have knowable dependency lists at compile time, but this is one of the few that can load new modules without being recompiled.
See More
Top
Pro
•••
Optional cookie support to communicate module caching state to the server
Cookie support within Qoopido.demand can be enabled globally or per module. Whenever the localStorage cache for a module changes an accompanying cookie gets updated/deleted so the server can handle the clients module caching state and, e.g., inline modules as long as the client das not have them in localStorage.
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Top
Pro
•••
Supports loading of non-module scripts
Qoopido.demand offers loading of legacy scripts as if they were modules through probe functions. These probe functions are similiar to Require.js shim, but where shim allows only string parameters, Qoopido.demand's probes are JavaScript functions that can check whatever you want.
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Top
Pro
•••
Promise like interface
Although not depending on native promise support it offers a promise like interface which greatly improves readability of code
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Top
Pro
•••
Supports nested dependencies
Dynamically loaded modules can have further dependencies that will get dynamically resolved and loaded
See More
Top
Pro
•••
localStorage caching removes the need to bundle
It enables and encourages the development of atomic modules that do not necessarily have to get bundled (manually or via build-process) to gain performance
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Top
Pro
•••
Support for legacy browsers
Qoopido.demand has recently added support for legacy browsers. Including IE8.
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Top
Pro
•••
Supports loading of bundles
From version 1.1.1 onwards Qoopido.demand is able to load multiple concatenated modules in a single request (like jsdelivr) while maintaining automatic module resolution.
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Free
Recommend
3
--
ClientModulesJS
My Rec
ommendation
for
ClientModulesJS
My Recommendation for
ClientModulesJS
All
4
Pros
1
Cons
3
Top
Con
•••
Depends on jQuery
See More
Top
Pro
•••
Very similar to node.js modules usage
It can be imported using the require function.
See More
Top
Con
•••
Requires ES6 support in Browser or additional transpilation
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Top
Con
•••
Zero english documentation
Documentation is in Spanish.
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Get it
here
Recommend
1
1
--
melchior.js
My Rec
ommendation
for
melchior.js
My Recommendation for
melchior.js
All
2
Pros
1
Cons
1
Top
Pro
•••
Lightweight
Melchior has no dependencies on other libraries, it's pretty small and it only weighs 3KB when minified.
See More
Top
Con
•••
Cannot load static assets
Melchior does not support loading static assets such as stylesheets or images.
See More
Hide
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here
Recommend
--
Curl.js
My Rec
ommendation
for
Curl.js
My Recommendation for
Curl.js
All
5
Pros
4
Cons
1
Top
Pro
•••
Size ~4KB (gzipped)
See More
Top
Con
•••
Development has stopped
The maintainers have announced that all development for CurlJS has stopped, at least for the foreseeable future.
See More
Top
Pro
•••
Async loading on demand
Async loading on demand including loadings from cdns. For example it is easy to load jquery from cdn as a module. The same thing is not that easy to achieve in Webpack
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Top
Pro
•••
Provides legacy loader
Legacy loader supports loading of plain js files and exporting globals or even expressions.
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Top
Pro
•••
AMD & CJS module support
Supports both AMD and CommonJS modules.
See More
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Get it
here
Recommend
1
1
--
Gourmet
My Rec
ommendation
for
Gourmet
My Recommendation for
Gourmet
All
8
Pros
4
Cons
4
Top
Con
•••
Feature set is unclear
See More
Top
Pro
•••
Friendly asset handling
Auto-asset inclusion, native CSS support, and flexible bundling make handling your assets simple.
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Top
Con
•••
Not available yet
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Top
Pro
•••
ES6 support
Supports ES6 syntax by default.
See More
Top
Con
•••
Zero documentation
See More
Top
Pro
•••
Easy configuration
Declarative configuration makes project setup easy.
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Top
Con
•••
Browser support unknown
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Top
Pro
•••
Isomorphic rendering by default
The runtime environment allows for isomorphic rendering of React applications by default.
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here
Recommend
1
4
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53
Webpack
My Rec
ommendation
for
Webpack
My Recommendation for
Webpack
Get it
here
Recommend
51
6
50
Browserify
My Rec
ommendation
for
Browserify
My Recommendation for
Browserify
Get it
here
Recommend
39
10
--
rollup.js
My Rec
ommendation
for
rollup.js
My Recommendation for
rollup.js
Get it
here
Recommend
3
--
rollup
My Rec
ommendation
for
rollup
My Recommendation for
rollup
Get it
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Recommend
1
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