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Brunch vs System.js: What are the differences?
What is Brunch? 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.
What is System.js? Dynamic ES module loader. 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.
Brunch and System.js belong to "JS Build Tools / JS Task Runners" category of the tech stack.
Some of the features offered by Brunch are:
- 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
On the other hand, System.js provides the following key features:
- Compatibility with Webpack
- Polyfills for Older Browsers
- Loader Extensions
Brunch and System.js are both open source tools. System.js with 9.75K GitHub stars and 852 forks on GitHub appears to be more popular than Brunch with 6.59K GitHub stars and 463 GitHub forks.
According to the StackShare community, Brunch has a broader approval, being mentioned in 21 company stacks & 56 developers stacks; compared to System.js, which is listed in 3 company stacks and 4 developer stacks.
I could define the next points why we have to migrate:
- Decrease build time of our application. (It was the main cause).
- Also
jspm installtakes much more time thannpm 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.
Pros of Brunch
- Easy and awesome13
- Ultra Fast9
- Light Configuration9
- Built-in dev server with live reload4
- Simple to use3
- Has many pre-configurable framework "skeletons"2
Pros of System.js
- Great plugin system1
- Loads anything trough AMD with the right plugin1
