Metro Bundler vs Webpack

Overview

Webpack

Stacks45.0K

Followers28.1K

Votes752

GitHub Stars65.7K

Forks9.2K

Metro Bundler

Stacks13

Followers32

Votes0

Metro Bundler vs Webpack: What are the differences?

Introduction

This Markdown code provides a comparison between Metro Bundler and Webpack, highlighting their key differences.

Bundler Type: Metro Bundler is the default JavaScript bundler for React Native projects, while Webpack is a widely used bundler primarily for web development.
Configuration: Metro Bundler requires minimal configuration as it aims to be a zero-configuration bundler, whereas Webpack is highly configurable and allows for extensive customization through its configuration file.
Hot Module Replacement (HMR): Metro Bundler provides built-in HMR support for React Native development, allowing for fast updates during development without manually refreshing the app. Webpack also supports HMR, but it requires additional configuration and plugins to enable this feature.
Module Resolution: Metro Bundler uses a resolution algorithm specific to React Native, which allows for easy importing of dependencies without the need for additional configuration in most cases. Webpack, on the other hand, requires explicit configuration for resolving different module types (e.g., JavaScript, CSS, etc.) and may have additional complexities when dealing with dependencies.
Built-in Polyfills: Metro Bundler includes a set of built-in polyfills for React Native apps, which means developers don't need to explicitly include them in their code. Webpack does not provide built-in polyfills and requires developers to manually include and configure polyfills for different environments, such as older browsers.
Size and Performance: Metro Bundler aims to optimize for performance in React Native development by providing a fast bundling process with minimal overhead. Webpack, being a more general-purpose bundler, may have a larger bundle size and slightly slower build times due to its extensive feature set and configurability.

In summary, Metro Bundler is a zero-configuration bundler specifically designed for React Native projects, providing built-in support for HMR and polyfills, whereas Webpack is a highly configurable bundler widely used in web development, with additional complex configuration options for module resolution and polyfills.

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CLI (Node.js)

Manual

Advice on Webpack, Metro Bundler

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

Rob

Tech Lead at Runa

Mar 15, 2021

Decided

The developer experience Webpack gave us was not delighting anyone. It works and is stable and consistent. It is also slow and frustrating. We decided to check out Vite as an alternative when moving to Vue 3 and have been amazed. It is very early in development and there are plenty of rough edges, but it has been a breath of fresh air not waiting for anything to update. It is so fast we have found ourselves using devtools in browser less because changing styles is just as fast in code. We felt confident using the tool because although it is early in its development, the production build is still provided by Rollup which is a mature tool. We also felt optimistic that as good as it is right now, it will only continue to get better, as it is being worked on very actively. So far we are really happy with the choice.

55.8k views55.8k

Comments

Abigail

Dec 10, 2019

Decided

We mostly use rollup to publish package onto NPM. For most all other use cases, we use the Meteor build tool (probably 99% of the time) for publishing packages. If you're using Node on FHIR you probably won't need to know rollup, unless you are somehow working on helping us publish front end user interface components using FHIR. That being said, we have been migrating away from Atmosphere package manager towards NPM. As we continue to migrate away, we may publish other NPM packages using rollup.

224k views224k

Comments

Detailed Comparison

Webpack	Metro Bundler
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.	🚅 Fast: We aim for sub-second reload cycles, fast startup and quick bundling speeds. ⚖️ Scalable: Works with thousands of modules in a single application. ⚛️ Integrated: Supports every React Native project out of the box.
Bundles ES Modules, CommonJS, and AMD modules (even combined); Can create a single bundle or multiple chunks that are asynchronously loaded at runtime (to reduce initial loading time); Dependencies are resolved during compilation, reducing the runtime size; Loaders can preprocess files while compiling, e.g. TypeScript to JavaScript, Handlebars strings to compiled functions, images to Base64, etc; Highly modular plugin system to do whatever else your application requires	-
Statistics
GitHub Stars 65.7K	GitHub Stars -
GitHub Forks 9.2K	GitHub Forks -
Stacks 45.0K	Stacks 13
Followers 28.1K	Followers 32
Votes 752	Votes 0
Pros & Cons
Pros 309 Most powerful bundler 182 Built-in dev server with livereload 142 Can handle all types of assets 87 Easy configuration 22 Laravel-mix Cons 15 Hard to configure 5 No clear direction 2 Spaghetti-Code out of the box 2 Loader architecture is quite a mess (unreliable/buggy) 2 SystemJS integration is quite lackluster	No community feedback yet
Integrations
JavaScript	React Native JavaScript

What are some alternatives to Webpack, Metro Bundler?

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.

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.

Brunch

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

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

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 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

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

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

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

System.js

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.

Related Comparisons

Metro Bundler vs Webpack: What are the differences?

Introduction

This Markdown code provides a comparison between Metro Bundler and Webpack, highlighting their key differences.

Bundler Type: Metro Bundler is the default JavaScript bundler for React Native projects, while Webpack is a widely used bundler primarily for web development.
Configuration: Metro Bundler requires minimal configuration as it aims to be a zero-configuration bundler, whereas Webpack is highly configurable and allows for extensive customization through its configuration file.
Hot Module Replacement (HMR): Metro Bundler provides built-in HMR support for React Native development, allowing for fast updates during development without manually refreshing the app. Webpack also supports HMR, but it requires additional configuration and plugins to enable this feature.
Module Resolution: Metro Bundler uses a resolution algorithm specific to React Native, which allows for easy importing of dependencies without the need for additional configuration in most cases. Webpack, on the other hand, requires explicit configuration for resolving different module types (e.g., JavaScript, CSS, etc.) and may have additional complexities when dealing with dependencies.
Built-in Polyfills: Metro Bundler includes a set of built-in polyfills for React Native apps, which means developers don't need to explicitly include them in their code. Webpack does not provide built-in polyfills and requires developers to manually include and configure polyfills for different environments, such as older browsers.
Size and Performance: Metro Bundler aims to optimize for performance in React Native development by providing a fast bundling process with minimal overhead. Webpack, being a more general-purpose bundler, may have a larger bundle size and slightly slower build times due to its extensive feature set and configurability.

Metro Bundler vs Webpack

Overview

Metro Bundler vs Webpack: What are the differences?