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Browserify

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Webpack

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27.5K
+ 1
752
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Browserify vs Webpack: What are the differences?

## Key Differences Between Browserify and Webpack

<Write Introduction here>

1. **Bundle Configuration**: Browserify relies on an external configuration file to define the bundle settings, whereas Webpack allows bundling configurations to be defined directly within the project's configuration file.
2. **Code Splitting**: Webpack has built-in support for code splitting, allowing you to split your code into multiple bundles that can be loaded on demand. Browserify lacks this feature, requiring additional tools or configurations to achieve code splitting.
3. **Loaders and Plugins**: Webpack offers a more extensive range of loaders and plugins for processing various file types, while Browserify has a more limited set of options for transforming files during the bundling process.
4. **Performance Optimization**: Webpack provides a more sophisticated approach to performance optimization through features like tree shaking and module concatenation. Browserify, on the other hand, may require manual optimizations or additional tools to achieve similar results.
5. **Hot Module Replacement**: Webpack natively supports hot module replacement, allowing modules to be updated without a full page refresh during development. Browserify requires additional setup and configuration to enable similar functionality.
6. **Community and Ecosystem**: Webpack enjoys a larger and more active community, resulting in more comprehensive documentation, support, and a wider selection of plugins and tools compared to Browserify.

## Summary
In Summary, Webpack offers more advanced features, better performance optimization, and a larger community support compared to Browserify.
Decisions about Browserify and Webpack
Aleksandr Filatov
Contract Software Engineer - Microsoft · | 4 upvotes · 293K views
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.
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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 Browserify
Pros of Webpack
  • 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
  • 309
    Most powerful bundler
  • 182
    Built-in dev server with livereload
  • 142
    Can handle all types of assets
  • 87
    Easy configuration
  • 22
    Laravel-mix
  • 4
    Overengineered, Underdeveloped
  • 2
    Makes it easy to bundle static assets
  • 2
    Webpack-Encore
  • 1
    Redundant
  • 1
    Better support in Browser Dev-Tools

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Cons of Browserify
Cons of Webpack
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    • 15
      Hard to configure
    • 5
      No clear direction
    • 2
      Spaghetti-Code out of the box
    • 2
      SystemJS integration is quite lackluster
    • 2
      Loader architecture is quite a mess (unreliable/buggy)
    • 2
      Fire and Forget mentality of Core-Developers

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    - No public GitHub repository available -

    What is Browserify?

    Browserify lets you require('modules') in the browser by bundling up all of your dependencies.

    What is 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.

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    What tools integrate with Browserify?
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    What are some alternatives to Browserify and Webpack?
    Bower
    Bower is a package manager for the web. It offers a generic, unopinionated solution to the problem of front-end package management, while exposing the package dependency model via an API that can be consumed by a more opinionated build stack. There are no system wide dependencies, no dependencies are shared between different apps, and the dependency tree is flat.
    Babel
    Babel will turn your ES6+ code into ES5 friendly code, so you can start using it right now without waiting for browser support.
    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.
    RequireJS
    RequireJS loads plain JavaScript files as well as more defined modules. It is optimized for in-browser use, including in a Web Worker, but it can be used in other JavaScript environments, like Rhino and Node. It implements the Asynchronous Module API. Using a modular script loader like RequireJS will improve the speed and quality of your code.
    Parcel
    Parcel is a web application bundler, differentiated by its developer experience. It offers blazing fast performance utilizing multicore processing, and requires zero configuration.
    See all alternatives