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Babel

Stacks25.2K

Followers10.5K

+ 1

Votes391

Browserify

Stacks2.6K

Followers412

+ 1

Votes261

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Babel vs Browserify: What are the differences?

Babel: Use next generation JavaScript, today. Babel will turn your ES6+ code into ES5 friendly code, so you can start using it right now without waiting for browser support; Browserify: Browser-side require() the node.js way. Browserify lets you require('modules') in the browser by bundling up all of your dependencies.

Babel can be classified as a tool in the "JavaScript Compilers" category, while Browserify is grouped under "Front End Package Manager".

"Modern Javascript works with all browsers" is the top reason why over 160 developers like Babel, while over 73 developers mention "Node style browser code" as the leading cause for choosing Browserify.

Babel and Browserify are both open source tools. It seems that Babel with 33.5K GitHub stars and 3.57K forks on GitHub has more adoption than Browserify with 12.7K GitHub stars and 1.12K GitHub forks.

SendGrid, Sentry, and Yahoo! are some of the popular companies that use Babel, whereas Browserify is used by Clever, Repro, and UNION. Babel has a broader approval, being mentioned in 888 company stacks & 661 developers stacks; compared to Browserify, which is listed in 111 company stacks and 42 developer stacks.

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Pros of Babel

Pros of Browserify

165
Modern Javascript works with all browsers
77
Open source
60
Integration with lots of tools
56
Easy setup
26
Very active on github
2
Source maps
2
JSX
2
Love
1
Extensions

75
Node style browser code
52
Load modules installed by npm
45
Works great with gulp.js
38
NPM modules in the brower
34
Open source
16
Node streams
1
Easy setup

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What companies use Babel?

What companies use Browserify?

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What tools integrate with Babel?

What tools integrate with Browserify?

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What are some alternatives to Babel and Browserify?

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.

TypeScript

TypeScript is a language for application-scale JavaScript development. It's a typed superset of JavaScript that compiles to plain JavaScript.

CoffeeScript

It adds syntactic sugar inspired by Ruby, Python and Haskell in an effort to enhance JavaScript's brevity and readability. Specific additional features include list comprehension and de-structuring assignment.

ESLint

A pluggable and configurable linter tool for identifying and reporting on patterns in JavaScript. Maintain your code quality with ease.

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.

See all alternatives

Babel vs Browserify