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  1. Stackups
  2. DevOps
  3. Build Automation
  4. Javascript Build Tools
  5. Brunch vs System.js

Brunch vs System.js

OverviewDecisionsComparisonAlternatives

Overview

Brunch
Brunch
Stacks106
Followers127
Votes40
GitHub Stars6.8K
Forks431
System.js
System.js
Stacks28
Followers10
Votes2
GitHub Stars13.1K
Forks1.1K

Brunch vs System.js: What are the differences?

What is Brunch? Ultra-fast HTML5 build tool. Brunch is an assembler for HTML5 applications. It's agnostic to frameworks, libraries, programming, stylesheet & templating languages and backend technology.

What is System.js? Dynamic ES module loader. It is a Universal Module Loader for JavaScript. If you've used RequireJs or a CommonJs bundler in the past, you have probably created modules.Configurable module loader enabling dynamic ES module workflows in browsers and NodeJS.

Brunch and System.js belong to "JS Build Tools / JS Task Runners" category of the tech stack.

Some of the features offered by Brunch are:

  • compiles your scripts, templates, styleslints them
  • wraps the scripts and templates in common.js / AMD modules.concatenates scripts and styles
  • generates source maps for concatenated filescopies assets and static files

On the other hand, System.js provides the following key features:

  • Compatibility with Webpack
  • Polyfills for Older Browsers
  • Loader Extensions

Brunch and System.js are both open source tools. System.js with 9.75K GitHub stars and 852 forks on GitHub appears to be more popular than Brunch with 6.59K GitHub stars and 463 GitHub forks.

According to the StackShare community, Brunch has a broader approval, being mentioned in 21 company stacks & 56 developers stacks; compared to System.js, which is listed in 3 company stacks and 4 developer stacks.

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Advice on Brunch, System.js

Aleksandr
Aleksandr

Contract Software Engineer - Microsoft at Microsoft-365

Dec 23, 2019

Decided

Why migrated?

I could define the next points why we have to migrate:

  • Decrease build time of our application. (It was the main cause).
  • Also jspm install takes much more time than npm install.
  • Many config files for SystemJS and JSPM. For Webpack you can use just one main config file, and you can use some separate config files for specific builds using inheritance and merge them.
301k views301k
Comments

Detailed Comparison

Brunch
Brunch
System.js
System.js

Brunch is an assembler for HTML5 applications. It's agnostic to frameworks, libraries, programming, stylesheet & templating languages and backend technology.

It is a Universal Module Loader for JavaScript. If you've used RequireJs or a CommonJs bundler in the past, you have probably created modules.Configurable module loader enabling dynamic ES module workflows in browsers and NodeJS.

compiles your scripts, templates, styleslints them;wraps the scripts and templates in common.js / AMD modules.concatenates scripts and styles;generates source maps for concatenated filescopies assets and static files;shrinks the output by minifying code and optimizing imageswatches your files for changes;notifies you about errors via console and system notifications
Compatibility with Webpack;Polyfills for Older Browsers;Loader Extensions
Statistics
GitHub Stars
6.8K
GitHub Stars
13.1K
GitHub Forks
431
GitHub Forks
1.1K
Stacks
106
Stacks
28
Followers
127
Followers
10
Votes
40
Votes
2
Pros & Cons
Pros
  • 13
    Easy and awesome
  • 9
    Ultra Fast
  • 9
    Light Configuration
  • 4
    Built-in dev server with live reload
  • 3
    Simple to use
Pros
  • 1
    Loads anything trough AMD with the right plugin
  • 1
    Great plugin system
Integrations
No integrations available
AngularJS
AngularJS
Node.js
Node.js
jQuery
jQuery

What are some alternatives to Brunch, System.js?

gulp

gulp

Build system automating tasks: minification and copying of all JavaScript files, static images. More capable of watching files to automatically rerun the task when a file changes.

Webpack

Webpack

A bundler for javascript and friends. Packs many modules into a few bundled assets. Code Splitting allows to load parts for the application on demand. Through "loaders" modules can be CommonJs, AMD, ES6 modules, CSS, Images, JSON, Coffeescript, LESS, ... and your custom stuff.

Grunt

Grunt

The less work you have to do when performing repetitive tasks like minification, compilation, unit testing, linting, etc, the easier your job becomes. After you've configured it, a task runner can do most of that mundane work for you—and your team—with basically zero effort.

Parcel

Parcel

Parcel is a web application bundler, differentiated by its developer experience. It offers blazing fast performance utilizing multicore processing, and requires zero configuration.

rollup

rollup

It 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 new standardized format for code modules included in the ES6 revision of JavaScript, instead of previous idiosyncratic solutions such as CommonJS and AMD.

Backpack

Backpack

Backpack is minimalistic build system for Node.js. Inspired by Facebook's create-react-app, Zeit's Next.js, and Remy's Nodemon, Backpack lets you create modern Node.js apps and services with zero configuration. Backpack handles all the file-watching, live-reloading, transpiling, and bundling, so you don't have to.

Vite

Vite

It is an opinionated web dev build tool that serves your code via native ES Module imports during dev and bundles it with Rollup for production.

Pingy CLI

Pingy CLI

Gulp and Grunt and other heavyweight build tools are great for complicated build workflows. Sometimes you want something simpler that doesn't take lots of configuration to get up and running. That's Pingy CLI.

Microbundle

Microbundle

Zero-configuration bundler for tiny modules, powered by Rollup.

Esbuild

Esbuild

It is an extremely fast JavaScript and CSS bundler and minifier. Current build tools for the web are 10-100x slower than they could be. The main goal of this project is to bring about a new era of build tool performance, and create an easy-to-use modern bundler along the way.

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