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BrowserSync

126
139
+ 1
0
Webpack

37.3K
25.3K
+ 1
750
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BrowserSync vs Webpack: What are the differences?

What is BrowserSync? Reload all your browsers, every time you hit save. BrowserSync makes your tweaking and testing faster by synchronising file changes and interactions across multiple devices. It’s wicked-fast and totally free.

What is Webpack? A bundler for javascript and friends. 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.

BrowserSync and Webpack are primarily classified as "Live Reloading" and "JS Build Tools / JS Task Runners" tools respectively.

BrowserSync and Webpack are both open source tools. Webpack with 49.8K GitHub stars and 6.27K forks on GitHub appears to be more popular than BrowserSync with 10.7K GitHub stars and 689 GitHub forks.

According to the StackShare community, Webpack has a broader approval, being mentioned in 2208 company stacks & 1341 developers stacks; compared to BrowserSync, which is listed in 10 company stacks and 12 developer stacks.

Decisions about BrowserSync and Webpack
Aleksandr Filatov
Contract Software Engineer - Microsoft · | 4 upvotes · 252.9K 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 BrowserSync
Pros of Webpack
    Be the first to leave a pro
    • 308
      Most powerful bundler
    • 181
      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

    Sign up to add or upvote prosMake informed product decisions

    Cons of BrowserSync
    Cons of Webpack
      Be the first to leave a con
      • 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

      Sign up to add or upvote consMake informed product decisions

      What is BrowserSync?

      BrowserSync makes your tweaking and testing faster by synchronising file changes and interactions across multiple devices. It’s wicked-fast and totally free.

      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.

      Need advice about which tool to choose?Ask the StackShare community!

      What companies use BrowserSync?
      What companies use Webpack?
      See which teams inside your own company are using BrowserSync or Webpack.
      Sign up for StackShare EnterpriseLearn More

      Sign up to get full access to all the companiesMake informed product decisions

      What tools integrate with BrowserSync?
      What tools integrate with Webpack?

      Sign up to get full access to all the tool integrationsMake informed product decisions

      What are some alternatives to BrowserSync and Webpack?
      Browserify
      Browserify lets you require('modules') in the browser by bundling up all of your dependencies.
      LiveReload
      LiveReload monitors changes in the file system. As soon as you save a file, it is preprocessed as needed, and the browser is refreshed.
      Ghostlab
      It is a Mac based app that allows you to test out your responsive design across a variety of devices and browsers
      CodeKit
      Process Less, Sass, Stylus, Jade, Haml, Slim, CoffeeScript, Javascript, and Compass files automatically each time you save. Easily set options for each language.
      Prepros
      It is an interface tool which handles pre-processing, and other front-end tasks. Its greatest strength is the incredible ease with which it allows you to use pre-processors of various kinds, be they for CSS, HTML or JavaScript.
      See all alternatives