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Frontend Development
Javascript
What are the best frontend JavaScript module bundlers?
16
Options
Considered
216
User
Recs.
Jan 23, 2024
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16
Options
Considered
Best frontend JavaScript module bundlers
Price
Number of Plugins
Task instruction style
61
Webpack
-
-
-
--
Parcel
free
-
-
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FuseBox
-
-
-
--
Browserify
-
-
-
--
rollup
-
-
-
See Full List
61
Webpack
My Rec
ommendation
for
Webpack
My Recommendation for
Webpack
All
11
Pros
9
Cons
2
Top
Pro
•••
Rich and flexible plugin infrastructure
Plugins and loaders are easy to write and allow you to control each step of the build, from loading and compiling CoffeeScript, LESS and JADE files to smart post processing and asset manifest building.
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Top
Con
•••
Config file may be hard to understand
Due to a somewhat hard to grasp syntax, configuring Webpack may take some time.
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Top
Pro
•••
Tap into npm's huge module ecosystem
Using Webpack 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.
See More
Top
Con
•••
Can not load files discovered during runtime
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Top
Pro
•••
Can create a single bundle or multiple chunks loaded on demand, to reduce initial loading time
Webpack allows you to split your codebase into multiple chunks. Chunks are loaded on demand. This reduces the initial loading time.
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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
•••
ES6 module support
Webpack supports ES6 modules and their import and export methods without having to compile them to CommonJS require
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Top
Pro
•••
Share the same modules client-side and server-side
Because Webpack 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
•••
Bundles CommonJs and AMD modules (even combined)
Webpack supports AMD and CommonJS module styles. It performs clever static analysis on the AST of your code. It even has an evaluation engine to evaluate simple expressions. This allows you to support most existing libraries.
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Top
Pro
•••
Mix ES6 AMD and CommonJS
Webpack supports using all three module types, even in the same file.
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Top
Pro
•••
Limit plugin integration issues
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Get it
here
Recommend
66
15
--
Parcel
My Rec
ommendation
for
Parcel
My Recommendation for
Parcel
All
3
Pros
2
Cons
1
Top
Pro
•••
Auto-fetch dependencies
Run parcel watch on javascript file. It will auto download dependencies when you import modules.
See More
Top
Con
•••
Running yarn under the hood fails on Windows from time to time
See More
Top
Pro
•••
Works nice with Vue.js
Just set "lang" parameter and parcel will install required dependencies like pug or node-sass. You don't even need to restart the process.
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free
Recommend
16
1
--
FuseBox
My Rec
ommendation
for
FuseBox
My Recommendation for
FuseBox
All
11
Experiences
1
Pros
10
Top
Pro
•••
Without complex config
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Javier Pérez Ruiz's Experience
Webpack is like grunt, huge config file Fusebox is like gulp, code what ever you want
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Top
Pro
•••
Super easy to use
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Top
Pro
•••
Built-in tasks system
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Top
Pro
•••
Server, npm or browser target
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Top
Pro
•••
Dynamics imports
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Top
Pro
•••
Super fast
See More
Top
Pro
•••
Hot module reload
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Top
Pro
•••
Es6 export
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Top
Pro
•••
Pluggable
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Top
Pro
•••
Treeshake
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Get it
here
Recommend
25
1
--
Browserify
My Rec
ommendation
for
Browserify
My Recommendation for
Browserify
All
11
Pros
8
Cons
3
Top
Pro
•••
Provides browser-friendly shims of Node modules
Browserify provides browser-friendly shims of Node modules, that allow for things like Node event systems, path parsing, URL parsing.
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Top
Con
•••
Requires NodeJS environment
Browserify does nothing client-side. It's only a server-side builder. If you want to load files from other domains, look at RequireJS. If you want to break your code up into multiple modules, look at RequireJS or Webpack.
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Top
Pro
•••
Simple to use dependency management
To require a file, just use the require() function. var foo = require('./foo.js'); These files may have dependencies of their own. Browserify will build a dependency graph and bundle it into a single file that you just have to put in a script tag. <html> <body> <script src="bundle.js"></script> </body> </html>
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Top
Con
•••
Not all javascript libraries have an npm version
While it's not too hard to create npm package for an existing library, it means maintaining it when the library updates. While most libraries are now on npm, many client side specific libraries are not. It's possible to require local files instead, at the expense of not having npm managed version control.
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Top
Pro
•••
Each module is wrapped in a closure
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Top
Con
•••
No dynamic loading
With Browserify it is impossible to do something like this: var mod = require('path/'+name+'.js');
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Top
Pro
•••
Tap into npm's huge module ecosystem
Using browserify 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.
See More
Top
Pro
•••
Friendly plugin interface
Writing plugins is relatively easy and straight forward as each file, you can run a function that gives a file name and path, based on that you can decide if you want to do something like parse, transform, modify etc the file or skip it.
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Top
Pro
•••
Share the same modules client-side and server-side
Because browserify allows you to use the same require() function as node.js, you can easily share modules between the client-side and server-side.
See More
Top
Pro
•••
deAMDify & debowerify allow using modules written for other systems
Browserify includes transforms such as deAMDify, that allow you to use modules written in the AMD module format, and debowerify, that allows you to use modules intended to be managed by Bower package manager.
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Top
Pro
•••
CJS module format
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Get it
here
Recommend
11
3
--
rollup
My Rec
ommendation
for
rollup
My Recommendation for
rollup
All
5
Pros
4
Cons
1
Top
Pro
•••
Implements tree-shaking
Can reduce resulting bundle size by performing "tree-shaking" (removing unused parts of code).
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Top
Con
•••
Async/await support lack
Doesn't support async/await out of the box for the time being, and there is no available working plugin to fill the gap.
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Top
Pro
•••
Easy configuration
Simple config files
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Top
Pro
•••
Small and fast installation
It's only one file.
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Top
Pro
•••
Ideal for shipping es2015/ES6 modules
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Get it
here
Recommend
12
--
Vite
My Rec
ommendation
for
Vite
My Recommendation for
Vite
All
4
Experiences
2
Pros
2
Top
Pro
•••
Lighting fast
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ConvivialLeucothea's Experience
I'm using it with React + Tailwind. It makes the app very fast to start and reload (specially with JIT mode in tailwind). We had a project react/taiwind (and many other librairies like redux and such) using CRACO, wich was pretty slow to start. Like 20 secondes for some people (one of us could have to wait 1min for the app to start on his browser). With Vite, in less than a seconde the project is started.
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Top
Pro
•••
Easy to implement
You can create an app with Vite (like React/Vite or Vue/Vite) with a simple CLI and migration from create-react-app to vite is realy easy.
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Husnul Aman's Experience
Fastest bundler out there. Changes are instant and doesn't require browser refresh
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Hide
See All
Recommend
9
--
JSPM
My Rec
ommendation
for
JSPM
My Recommendation for
JSPM
All
6
Pros
5
Cons
1
Top
Pro
•••
Module style agnostic
Loads ES6, AMD, CommonJS and globals.
See More
Top
Con
•••
Poor bundler performance
Bundling performance is slow, though offset by the fact that bundling is not required during development, since it can load dependencies asynchronously.
See More
Top
Pro
•••
Registry agnostic
JSPM is registry agnostic, it can pull packages from npm and github and is built in such a way it can support more.
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Top
Pro
•••
Versioned package urls
It creates a packages folders which are versioned. This makes it future proof for a time where we stop bundling all the code. In the following presentation Guy Bedford calls bundling an anti-pattern.
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Top
Pro
•••
Module loading
Could use a module loader or use the bundle without config anything.
See More
Top
Pro
•••
Don't need to bundle again with every change
A bundle is very difficult to debug in mid-big projects (20k lines). JSPM allow you to develop without generate a bundle.
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Hide
See All
Get it
here
Recommend
13
4
--
Brunch
My Rec
ommendation
for
Brunch
My Recommendation for
Brunch
All
9
Pros
7
Cons
1
Specs
Top
Pro
•••
Skeletons
Ready made application boilerplates that provide a good starting point for your application.
See More
Top
Con
•••
Testing
Testing is a little cumbersome.
See More
Specs
Number of Plugins:
~100
Task instruction style:
Code
Processing method:
Pipeline
Top
Pro
•••
Plugins
A large selection of plugins are available.
See More
Top
Pro
•••
Concatenates scripts and styles and auto-generates matching source maps
Brunch automatically produces a source map for all javascript files and CSS stylesheets whenever it minifies an app's resources. This little feature is extremely helpful when debugging is required at the client end.
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Top
Pro
•••
Time to setup is extremely low
After installing Brunch the next step is to load a skeleton from git.io/skeletons. This step is as easy as installing another plugin from the npm registry, just point Brunch to the path of the required skeleton/generator then wait for it to work out its magic. Next, run brunch build then wait for a second or two and voila! The project is ready.
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Top
Pro
•••
Compilation is super fast
According to speed benchmarks, Brunch is one of the fastest tools around for compiling files. According to the authors of Brunch the reason behind this speed is that it recompiles only the changes that were made to an app and performs extensive caching of the app's code.
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Top
Pro
•••
Handle different js/css bundles
Allow to compile and bundle js/es20xx/sass etc. without pain
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Top
Pro
•••
Small configs
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Free
Recommend
5
--
Angular
My Rec
ommendation
for
Angular
My Recommendation for
Angular
Hide
Get it
here
Recommend
1
--
stealjs
My Rec
ommendation
for
stealjs
My Recommendation for
stealjs
Hide
Get it
here
Recommend
4
--
Lasso
My Rec
ommendation
for
Lasso
My Recommendation for
Lasso
All
8
Pros
8
Top
Pro
•••
Command line interface
See More
Top
Pro
•••
Support for preprocessors and compilers
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Top
Pro
•••
Fingerprinted resource URLs
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Top
Pro
•••
Compression
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Top
Pro
•••
Conditional dependencies
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Top
Pro
•••
Lazy loading
See More
Top
Pro
•••
Code splitting
See More
Top
Pro
•••
Bundling
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Hide
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Get it
here
Recommend
7
2
--
Require.js
My Rec
ommendation
for
Require.js
My Recommendation for
Require.js
All
14
Experiences
2
Pros
10
Cons
2
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
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 your building a library that should work on both client and server (i.e. PouchDB).
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Brian Genisio's Experience
This isn't really a bundler. It is more of a loader, but there are better ones out there.
See More
Top
Pro
•••
Has a RequireJS optimizer
After building all the modules to be loaded, the built files can be optimized as well (minified and joint together), 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
•••
Quietly fails with circular references
If you create a circular reference, the side loaded last will fail with a confusing error that makes it look like the reference doesn't exist.
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Ɐha Hah's Experience
Combine with grunt/gulp for bundling via r.js Optimizer. Use HATEOAS over REST and hot swap namespace change potential of networked structure.
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Top
Pro
•••
Hot loading of modules out-of-box
Lazy loading modules as a primary feature
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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
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
•••
No necessary build step
Not only do you not need a server, it works in browser without a build step.
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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.
See More
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.
See More
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
Pro
•••
Works with basically every desktop browser, even IE6
RequireJS supports IE6+, FF2+, Safari3.2+, Chrome3+ & Opera 10+.
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FREE
Recommend
6
7
--
Systemjs-Builder
My Rec
ommendation
for
Systemjs-Builder
My Recommendation for
Systemjs-Builder
All
4
Experiences
1
Pros
2
Cons
1
Top
Pro
•••
Special support for systemjs-loader
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Top
Con
•••
Can be very slow
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SupportiveAntaeus's Experience
Slow
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Top
Pro
•••
Modern bundling for packages and bundle export
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0
Recommend
3
1
--
bundlejs
My Rec
ommendation
for
bundlejs
My Recommendation for
bundlejs
Hide
Free
Recommend
3
--
module-concat
My Rec
ommendation
for
module-concat
My Recommendation for
module-concat
All
4
Pros
3
Cons
1
Top
Pro
•••
Supports Client-side Browser Projects
Provides some support for concatenating client-side browser JavaScript modules. Also, can process the browser property in package.json.
See More
Top
Con
•••
Not a full-featured bundler
This doesn't handle CSS or HTML stuff. It only bundles JavaScript files.
See More
Top
Pro
•••
Supports languages that compile to JS
For example, CoffeeScript is supported using the compilers option.
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Top
Pro
•••
Lightweight
This library just concatenates CommonJS modules together into a single *.js file. Nothing else. It only uses 1 dependency: resolve
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0
Recommend
1
--
Bit Bundler
My Rec
ommendation
for
Bit Bundler
My Recommendation for
Bit Bundler
Hide
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