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  1. Stackups
  2. DevOps
  3. Build Automation
  4. Javascript Build Tools
  5. Brunch vs Grunt

Brunch vs Grunt

OverviewDecisionsComparisonAlternatives

Overview

Grunt
Grunt
Stacks8.8K
Followers5.6K
Votes697
GitHub Stars12.3K
Forks1.5K
Brunch
Brunch
Stacks106
Followers127
Votes40
GitHub Stars6.8K
Forks431

Brunch vs Grunt: What are the differences?

Developers describe Brunch as "Ultra-fast HTML5 build tool". Brunch is an assembler for HTML5 applications. It's agnostic to frameworks, libraries, programming, stylesheet & templating languages and backend technology. On the other hand, Grunt is detailed as "The JavaScript Task Runner". 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 and Grunt can be categorized as "JS Build Tools / JS Task Runners" tools.

"Easy and awesome" is the primary reason why developers consider Brunch over the competitors, whereas "Configuration " was stated as the key factor in picking Grunt.

Brunch and Grunt are both open source tools. It seems that Grunt with 11.9K GitHub stars and 1.55K forks on GitHub has more adoption than Brunch with 6.58K GitHub stars and 461 GitHub forks.

According to the StackShare community, Grunt has a broader approval, being mentioned in 796 company stacks & 429 developers stacks; compared to Brunch, which is listed in 14 company stacks and 9 developer stacks.

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Advice on Grunt, Brunch

António
António

Apr 13, 2021

Decided

Very simple to use and a great way to optimize repetitive tasks, like optimize PNG images, convert to WebP, create sprite images with CSS.

I didn't choose Grunt because of the fact it uses files and Gulp uses memory, making it faster for my use case since I need to work with 3000+ small images. And the fact Gulp has 32k+ stars on GitHub.

38.5k views38.5k
Comments

Detailed Comparison

Grunt
Grunt
Brunch
Brunch

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 is an assembler for HTML5 applications. It's agnostic to frameworks, libraries, programming, stylesheet & templating languages and backend technology.

-
compiles your scripts, templates, styleslints them;wraps the scripts and templates in common.js / AMD modules.concatenates scripts and styles;generates source maps for concatenated filescopies assets and static files;shrinks the output by minifying code and optimizing imageswatches your files for changes;notifies you about errors via console and system notifications
Statistics
GitHub Stars
12.3K
GitHub Stars
6.8K
GitHub Forks
1.5K
GitHub Forks
431
Stacks
8.8K
Stacks
106
Followers
5.6K
Followers
127
Votes
697
Votes
40
Pros & Cons
Pros
  • 288
    Configuration
  • 176
    Open source
  • 166
    Automation of minification and live reload
  • 60
    Great community
  • 7
    SASS compilation
Cons
  • 1
    Poor mindshare/community support
Pros
  • 13
    Easy and awesome
  • 9
    Light Configuration
  • 9
    Ultra Fast
  • 4
    Built-in dev server with live reload
  • 3
    Simple to use

What are some alternatives to Grunt, Brunch?

gulp

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

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.

Parcel

Parcel

Parcel is a web application bundler, differentiated by its developer experience. It offers blazing fast performance utilizing multicore processing, and requires zero configuration.

rollup

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.

Backpack

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

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

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

Microbundle

Zero-configuration bundler for tiny modules, powered by Rollup.

System.js

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.

Esbuild

Esbuild

It is an extremely fast JavaScript and CSS bundler and minifier. Current build tools for the web are 10-100x slower than they could be. The main goal of this project is to bring about a new era of build tool performance, and create an easy-to-use modern bundler along the way.

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