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Browsersync vs Reloadr

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When comparing Browsersync vs Reloadr, the Slant community recommends Browsersync for most people. In the question“What are the best cross-browser live-update / synchronization tools?” Browsersync is ranked 1st while Reloadr is ranked 8th. The most important reason people chose Browsersync is:

It is not constrained to a single device, it works across desktop and mobile devices at the same time. It will update code changes, synchronize scroll positions and form inputs automatically across all browsers and devices.

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Common Questions

What are the best cross-browser live-update / synchronization tools?

Pros

Pro
Works concurrently across multiple devices

Pro
Synchronized form field input

When filling out a form in one browser, same information will be repeated in other browsers.

Pro
Works with basically every desktop and mobile browser

Browser-Sync has been tested to work with desktop (Chrome, Firefox, IE 7-10, Safari, Opera) and mobile (Android, iOS, Windows Phone, Opera Mobile, Firefox Mobile) browsers.

Pro
Cross-platform

Works on Windows, Linux and OS X.

Pro
CSS injection

Once the monitored .css file is saved, changes are implemented without a refresh.

Pro
Free and open source

Licensed under MIT.

Pro
Remembers scroll position

Remembers scroll position and synchronize it across all browsers so you don't have to move to the appropriate part of the page after each reload.

Pro
Works as a standalone npm package or as a Grunt plugin

To install as a standalone npm package

npm install -g browser-sync

To install as a grunt-plugin

npm install grunt-browser-sync

Pro
Synchronized navigation

When navigating in one browser, other browsers will automatically follow to the same place.

Pro
Doesn't require a browser plugin

BrowserSync does not require a browser plugin to be installed. This is because it serves the files directly itself, and uses a script which opens a socket between the browser and the server.

Pro
Works with older versions of IE

Browser-Sync works with all supported IE versions - IE7 and up.

Pro
Server-side PHP support

Reloadr has a reloadr.php file included, which when configured, monitors and .php file in the project folder. Once a .php file is updated, reloadr automatically reloads the page.

Pro
Easy setup

Setting up Reloadr is rather easy. There are only two files that need to be included in the project folder, then the reloadr.js needs to be loaded in the view and the method to run Reloadr needs to be called. After that, everything is set up and ready to go.

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Cons

Con
Setting up in Windows can be a little tricky

Sometimes when setting up BrowserSync in Windows some errors will pop up. Most of the time this is because npm throws errors when trying to compile BrowserSync and some of the dependencies need Visual C++ runtime libraries.

This is easily solvable by installing Visual Studio. Once it's installed, there should not be any more problems.