Rollup vs Webpack: JavaScript Module Bundlers Comparison

Both Rollup and Webpack are popular tools that combine your JavaScript code and its dependencies into a single bundle for production. Rollup specializes in creating smaller, more efficient bundles for libraries and is known for 'tree-shaking' (removing unused code). Webpack is more feature-rich and better suited for complete applications, offering extensive plugin support and handling various asset types beyond JavaScript.

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Similar Packages

Vite

90%

A modern build tool that offers blazing fast development server and optimized production builds. Created by the Vue.js team, it leverages native ES modules for instant dev server start and efficient builds.

Vite is a great alternative to both Rollup and Webpack as it uses Rollup under the hood for production builds while offering significantly faster development experience. It has excellent support for modern web features and frameworks.

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Parcel

85%

A zero-configuration bundler that just works out of the box. It automatically detects your project's needs and optimizes builds with multicore processing.

Parcel is ideal for developers who want Webpack-like features without the complex configuration. It offers great performance and an excellent developer experience with minimal setup.

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esbuild

80%

An extremely fast JavaScript bundler written in Go. It can bundle, minify, and transform JavaScript code at speeds up to 100x faster than traditional bundlers.

While less feature-rich than Webpack, esbuild excels in performance and simplicity. It's perfect for projects that need raw speed and don't require complex configurations.

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Snowpack

75%

A modern, lightweight build tool that leverages JavaScript's native module system. Builds each file once and caches it indefinitely.

Snowpack offers a modern alternative to traditional bundlers by focusing on ESM and unbundled development. While less actively maintained now, it pioneered many concepts that influenced tools like Vite.

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SWC

70%

A super-fast JavaScript/TypeScript compiler written in Rust. Can be used as a drop-in replacement for Babel and can also handle bundling tasks.

SWC is gaining popularity due to its incredible speed and compatibility with existing tools. It's particularly good for TypeScript projects and can be integrated with other build tools.

Compiler / Bundler
<p align="center"> <a href="https://rollupjs.org/"><img src="https://rollupjs.org/rollup-logo.svg" width="150" /></a> </p> <p align="center"> <a href="https://www.npmjs.com/package/rollup"> <img src="https://img.shields.io/npm/v/rollup.svg" alt="npm version" > </a> <a href="https://nodejs.org/en/about/previous-releases"> <img src="https://img.shields.io/node/v/rollup.svg" alt="node compatibility"> </a> <a href="https://packagephobia.now.sh/result?p=rollup"> <img src="https://packagephobia.now.sh/badge?p=rollup" alt="install size" > </a> <a href="https://codecov.io/gh/rollup/rollup"> <img src="https://codecov.io/gh/rollup/rollup/graph/badge.svg" alt="code coverage" > </a> <a href="#backers" alt="sponsors on Open Collective"> <img src="https://opencollective.com/rollup/backers/badge.svg" alt="backers" > </a> <a href="#sponsors" alt="Sponsors on Open Collective"> <img src="https://opencollective.com/rollup/sponsors/badge.svg" alt="sponsors" > </a> <a href="https://github.com/rollup/rollup/blob/master/LICENSE.md"> <img src="https://img.shields.io/npm/l/rollup.svg" alt="license"> </a> <a href='https://is.gd/rollup_chat?utm_source=badge&utm_medium=badge&utm_campaign=pr-badge&utm_content=badge'> <img src='https://img.shields.io/discord/466787075518365708?color=778cd1&label=chat' alt='Join the chat at https://is.gd/rollup_chat'> </a> </p> <h1 align="center">Rollup</h1>

Overview

Rollup is a module bundler for JavaScript which compiles small pieces of code into something larger and more complex, such as a library or application. It uses the standardized ES module format for code, instead of previous idiosyncratic solutions such as CommonJS and AMD. ES modules let you freely and seamlessly combine the most useful individual functions from your favorite libraries. Rollup can optimize ES modules for faster native loading in modern browsers, or output a legacy module format allowing ES module workflows today.

Quick Start Guide

Install with npm install --global rollup. Rollup can be used either through a command line interface with an optional configuration file or else through its JavaScript API. Run rollup --help to see the available options and parameters. The starter project templates, rollup-starter-lib and rollup-starter-app, demonstrate common configuration options, and more detailed instructions are available throughout the user guide.

Commands

These commands assume the entry point to your application is named main.js, and that you'd like all imports compiled into a single file named bundle.js.

For browsers:

# compile to a <script> containing a self-executing function rollup main.js --format iife --name "myBundle" --file bundle.js

For Node.js:

# compile to a CommonJS module rollup main.js --format cjs --file bundle.js

For both browsers and Node.js:

# UMD format requires a bundle name rollup main.js --format umd --name "myBundle" --file bundle.js

Why

Developing software is usually easier if you break your project into smaller separate pieces, since that often removes unexpected interactions and dramatically reduces the complexity of the problems you'll need to solve, and simply writing smaller projects in the first place isn't necessarily the answer. Unfortunately, JavaScript has not historically included this capability as a core feature in the language.

This finally changed with ES modules support in JavaScript, which provides a syntax for importing and exporting functions and data so they can be shared between separate scripts. Most browsers and Node.js support ES modules. However, Node.js releases before 12.17 support ES modules only behind the --experimental-modules flag, and older browsers like Internet Explorer do not support ES modules at all. Rollup allows you to write your code using ES modules, and run your application even in environments that do not support ES modules natively. For environments that support them, Rollup can output optimized ES modules; for environments that don't, Rollup can compile your code to other formats such as CommonJS modules, AMD modules, and IIFE-style scripts. This means that you get to write future-proof code, and you also get the tremendous benefits of...

Tree Shaking

In addition to enabling the use of ES modules, Rollup also statically analyzes and optimizes the code you are importing, and will exclude anything that isn't actually used. This allows you to build on top of existing tools and modules without adding extra dependencies or bloating the size of your project.

For example, with CommonJS, the entire tool or library must be imported.

// import the entire utils object with CommonJS var utils = require('node:utils'); var query = 'Rollup'; // use the ajax method of the utils object utils.ajax('https://api.example.com?search=' + query).then(handleResponse);

But with ES modules, instead of importing the whole utils object, we can just import the one ajax function we need:

// import the ajax function with an ES import statement import { ajax } from 'node:utils'; var query = 'Rollup'; // call the ajax function ajax('https://api.example.com?search=' + query).then(handleResponse);

Because Rollup includes the bare minimum, it results in lighter, faster, and less complicated libraries and applications. Since this approach is based on explicit import and export statements, it is vastly more effective than simply running an automated minifier to detect unused variables in the compiled output code.

Compatibility

Importing CommonJS

Rollup can import existing CommonJS modules through a plugin.

Publishing ES Modules

To make sure your ES modules are immediately usable by tools that work with CommonJS such as Node.js and webpack, you can use Rollup to compile to UMD or CommonJS format, and then point to that compiled version with the main property in your package.json file. If your package.json file also has a module field, ES-module-aware tools like Rollup and webpack will import the ES module version directly.

Contributors

This project exists thanks to all the people who contribute. [Contribute]. <a href="https://github.com/rollup/rollup/graphs/contributors"><img src="https://opencollective.com/rollup/contributors.svg?width=890" /></a>. If you want to contribute yourself, head over to the contribution guidelines.

Backers

Thank you to all our backers! 🙏 [Become a backer]

<a href="https://opencollective.com/rollup#backers" target="_blank"><img src="https://opencollective.com/rollup/backers.svg?width=890"></a>

Sponsors

Support this project by becoming a sponsor. Your logo will show up here with a link to your website. [Become a sponsor]

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Special Sponsor

<a href="https://www.tngtech.com/en/index.html" target="_blank"><img src="https://avatars.githubusercontent.com/u/432256?s=200&v=4" alt="TNG Logo"/></a>

TNG has been supporting the work of Lukas Taegert-Atkinson on Rollup since 2017.

License

MIT