Babel vs rollup

Overview

Babel

Stacks27.3K

Followers11.0K

Votes391

GitHub Stars43.8K

Forks5.8K

rollup

Stacks2.4K

Followers164

Votes17

Babel vs rollup: What are the differences?

Introduction

Babel and Rollup are popular tools used in web development to help with code compilation and bundling. While they have similar purposes, there are key differences between the two. This markdown code will present these differences in an organized manner.

Babel: Transpiles code for backward compatibility - Babel is primarily used for transpiling JavaScript code into backward-compatible versions, allowing developers to use modern syntax even if it's not supported by all browsers. It translates newer code features into equivalent older versions, ensuring compatibility across different environments and browsers.
Rollup: Focuses on module bundling - Rollup, on the other hand, is primarily focused on the task of module bundling. It takes multiple modules and combines them into a single file, reducing redundancy and improving performance. Rollup is often used for creating optimized bundles for production use.
Babel: Supports a wide range of plugins and presets - Babel offers a vast ecosystem of plugins and presets that developers can utilize to customize the transpiling process. Developers can choose specific plugins for targeted transformations, such as converting arrow functions or async/await syntax, allowing for fine-tuned control over the transpilation process.
Rollup: Tree-shaking for efficient code splitting - Rollup excels in tree-shaking, a process that eliminates unused code during bundling. This allows developers to create smaller bundle sizes by only including necessary code, resulting in faster loading times and reduced bandwidth usage.
Babel: Language agnostic - Babel is not limited to JavaScript and can be used for transpiling other languages that compile to JavaScript, such as TypeScript or JSX (used in React). This flexibility makes Babel a versatile tool for developers working with different languages and frameworks.
Rollup: Supports multiple output formats - Rollup has built-in support for generating bundles in various formats, including CommonJS, AMD, and ES modules, making it suitable for different project setups and environments. Developers can choose the desired output format easily based on their specific needs.

In Summary, Babel focuses on transpiling code for backward compatibility and offers a wide range of customization options, while Rollup specializes in module bundling with tree-shaking capabilities and support for multiple output formats.

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Advice on Babel, rollup

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

Babel	rollup
Babel will turn your ES6+ code into ES5 friendly code, so you can start using it right now without waiting for browser support.	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.
Array comprehensions; Arrow functions; Async functions; Async generator functions; Classes; Class properties; Computed property names; Constants; Decorators; Default parameters; Destructuring; Exponentiation operator; For-of; Generators; Generator comprehensions; Let scoping; Modules; Module export extensions; Object rest/spread; Property method assignment; Property name shorthand; Rest parameters; React; Spread; Tail call optimisation; Template literals; Type annotations; Unicode regex; JSX; React; Flow; Node.js; Meteor; Rails; Broccoli; Browserify; Require.js; Brunch; Duo; Gobble; Grunt; Gulp; Make; Webpack; Connect; Jade; Jest; Karma; Mocha; Nodemon	-
Statistics
GitHub Stars 43.8K	GitHub Stars -
GitHub Forks 5.8K	GitHub Forks -
Stacks 27.3K	Stacks 2.4K
Followers 11.0K	Followers 164
Votes 391	Votes 17
Pros & Cons
Pros 165 Modern Javascript works with all browsers 77 Open source 60 Integration with lots of tools 56 Easy setup 26 Very active on github	Pros 4 Makes it easy to publish packages 3 Easier configuration 2 Provides smaller bundle size 2 Better tree shaking 1 Very flexible 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
Integrations
Grunt Broccoli Browserify Brunch Duo gulp RequireJS	No integrations available

What are some alternatives to Babel, rollup?

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.

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

Babel vs rollup: What are the differences?

Introduction

Babel: Transpiles code for backward compatibility - Babel is primarily used for transpiling JavaScript code into backward-compatible versions, allowing developers to use modern syntax even if it's not supported by all browsers. It translates newer code features into equivalent older versions, ensuring compatibility across different environments and browsers.
Rollup: Focuses on module bundling - Rollup, on the other hand, is primarily focused on the task of module bundling. It takes multiple modules and combines them into a single file, reducing redundancy and improving performance. Rollup is often used for creating optimized bundles for production use.
Babel: Supports a wide range of plugins and presets - Babel offers a vast ecosystem of plugins and presets that developers can utilize to customize the transpiling process. Developers can choose specific plugins for targeted transformations, such as converting arrow functions or async/await syntax, allowing for fine-tuned control over the transpilation process.
Rollup: Tree-shaking for efficient code splitting - Rollup excels in tree-shaking, a process that eliminates unused code during bundling. This allows developers to create smaller bundle sizes by only including necessary code, resulting in faster loading times and reduced bandwidth usage.
Babel: Language agnostic - Babel is not limited to JavaScript and can be used for transpiling other languages that compile to JavaScript, such as TypeScript or JSX (used in React). This flexibility makes Babel a versatile tool for developers working with different languages and frameworks.
Rollup: Supports multiple output formats - Rollup has built-in support for generating bundles in various formats, including CommonJS, AMD, and ES modules, making it suitable for different project setups and environments. Developers can choose the desired output format easily based on their specific needs.

Babel vs rollup

Overview

Babel vs rollup: What are the differences?