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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.

  1. 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.

  2. 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.

  3. 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.

  4. 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.

  5. 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.

  6. 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.

Decisions about Babel and rollup

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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Pros of Babel
Pros of rollup
  • 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
    JSX
  • 2
    Love
  • 2
    Source maps
  • 1
    Extensions
  • 4
    Makes it easy to publish packages
  • 3
    Easier configuration
  • 2
    Better tree shaking
  • 2
    Provides smaller bundle size
  • 1
    Integrates seamlessly with SystemJS
  • 1
    Produces very clean code
  • 1
    Very reliable
  • 1
    Very robust Plugin-API (years old Plugins still work)
  • 1
    Very flexible
  • 1
    Was built with ESM-Modules in mind

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Cons of Babel
Cons of rollup
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    • 1
      No clear path for static assets
    • 1
      No Loader like Webpack (need to use sjs or ESM imports)
    • 1
      Almost everything needs to be a Plugin
    • 1
      Manual Chunking is a bit buggy

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    What is Babel?

    Babel will turn your ES6+ code into ES5 friendly code, so you can start using it right now without waiting for browser support.

    What is 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.

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    What are some alternatives to Babel and rollup?
    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.
    Git
    Git is a free and open source distributed version control system designed to handle everything from small to very large projects with speed and efficiency.
    See all alternatives