Microbundle vs rollup

Overview

rollup

Stacks2.4K

Followers164

Votes17

Microbundle

Stacks30

Followers36

Votes2

GitHub Stars8.1K

Forks361

Microbundle vs rollup: What are the differences?

Introduction

Microbundle and Rollup are two popular tools used for bundling and packaging JavaScript modules. While they have some similarities, there are key differences between them that make each one suitable for specific use cases. In this comparison, we will highlight six main differences between Microbundle and Rollup.

Configuration simplicity: Microbundle aims to simplify the configuration process by providing sensible defaults. It requires minimal configuration and can build a bundle with just a few lines of code. On the other hand, Rollup offers more flexibility and control over the bundling process by allowing detailed configuration. It requires a more in-depth configuration setup but provides more customization options.
Built-in optimizations: Microbundle includes various built-in optimizations such as tree-shaking, dead code elimination, and minification by default. These optimizations help to reduce the bundle size and improve performance without the need for additional configuration. Rollup, on the other hand, provides flexibility to explicitly configure and enable optimizations based on specific requirements.
Module formats support: Microbundle primarily focuses on providing CommonJS and ES modules as output formats, which are compatible with most modern JavaScript environments. Rollup, in contrast, supports a wide range of output formats, including CommonJS, ES modules, UMD, AMD, and SystemJS. This flexibility makes Rollup a better choice when targeting different module systems.
Plugins and ecosystem: Rollup has a larger and more mature ecosystem of plugins compared to Microbundle. This wide range of plugins allows for seamless integration with various build tools, optimizing images, transpiling code, and many other functionalities. Microbundle, although it has a growing number of plugins, doesn't have the same level of plugin support as Rollup.
Development experience: Microbundle provides a fast and easy development experience out of the box. It offers fast rebuild times, automatic reloading, and supports incremental builds, making it ideal for rapid prototyping and development workflows. Rollup, while still offering decent build performance, may require additional setup for features like live reloading and incremental builds.
Community and popularity: Rollup has gained more popularity and has a larger community compared to Microbundle. This means that Rollup has more active development, updates, and community support. It also makes it easier to find help, tutorials, and resources related to Rollup.

In summary, Microbundle is a lightweight and easy-to-use bundler with built-in optimizations and simplicity, ideal for small to medium-sized projects. On the other hand, Rollup offers more customization options, module format support, a larger ecosystem of plugins, and is well-suited for larger projects with complex bundling requirements.

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Advice on rollup, Microbundle

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.

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Detailed Comparison

rollup	Microbundle
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.	Zero-configuration bundler for tiny modules, powered by Rollup.
-	Bundles your library using nothing but a package.json; Support for ESnext & async/await; Supports multiple entry modules; Creates multiple output formats for each entry; Build-in Uglify compression & gzipped bundle size tracking
Statistics
GitHub Stars -	GitHub Stars 8.1K
GitHub Forks -	GitHub Forks 361
Stacks 2.4K	Stacks 30
Followers 164	Followers 36
Votes 17	Votes 2
Pros & Cons
Pros 4 Makes it easy to publish packages 3 Easier configuration 2 Provides smaller bundle size 2 Better tree shaking 1 Produces very clean code Cons 1 Manual Chunking is a bit buggy 1 Almost everything needs to be a Plugin 1 No Loader like Webpack (need to use sjs or ESM imports) 1 No clear path for static assets	Pros 1 Works well with TypeScript 1 All the best Terser and Rollup settings already set
Integrations
No integrations available	JavaScript npm

What are some alternatives to rollup, Microbundle?

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

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

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.

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.

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.

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.

Related Comparisons

Microbundle vs rollup: What are the differences?

Introduction

Configuration simplicity: Microbundle aims to simplify the configuration process by providing sensible defaults. It requires minimal configuration and can build a bundle with just a few lines of code. On the other hand, Rollup offers more flexibility and control over the bundling process by allowing detailed configuration. It requires a more in-depth configuration setup but provides more customization options.
Built-in optimizations: Microbundle includes various built-in optimizations such as tree-shaking, dead code elimination, and minification by default. These optimizations help to reduce the bundle size and improve performance without the need for additional configuration. Rollup, on the other hand, provides flexibility to explicitly configure and enable optimizations based on specific requirements.
Module formats support: Microbundle primarily focuses on providing CommonJS and ES modules as output formats, which are compatible with most modern JavaScript environments. Rollup, in contrast, supports a wide range of output formats, including CommonJS, ES modules, UMD, AMD, and SystemJS. This flexibility makes Rollup a better choice when targeting different module systems.
Plugins and ecosystem: Rollup has a larger and more mature ecosystem of plugins compared to Microbundle. This wide range of plugins allows for seamless integration with various build tools, optimizing images, transpiling code, and many other functionalities. Microbundle, although it has a growing number of plugins, doesn't have the same level of plugin support as Rollup.
Development experience: Microbundle provides a fast and easy development experience out of the box. It offers fast rebuild times, automatic reloading, and supports incremental builds, making it ideal for rapid prototyping and development workflows. Rollup, while still offering decent build performance, may require additional setup for features like live reloading and incremental builds.
Community and popularity: Rollup has gained more popularity and has a larger community compared to Microbundle. This means that Rollup has more active development, updates, and community support. It also makes it easier to find help, tutorials, and resources related to Rollup.

Microbundle vs rollup

Overview

Microbundle vs rollup: What are the differences?