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  1. Stackups
  2. DevOps
  3. Build Automation
  4. Front End Package Manager
  5. CodeKit vs npm

CodeKit vs npm

OverviewDecisionsComparisonAlternatives

Overview

npm
npm
Stacks137.4K
Followers82.2K
Votes1.6K
GitHub Stars17.6K
Forks3.0K
CodeKit
CodeKit
Stacks69
Followers103
Votes28

CodeKit vs npm: What are the differences?

Introduction

In the web development world, tools like CodeKit and npm are widely used to streamline workflow and manage dependencies. Both serve distinct purposes, but there are key differences between them that developers need to consider.

  1. Package Management: One major difference between CodeKit and npm is in the way they handle package management. CodeKit does not have a package manager like npm, which is specifically designed for managing JavaScript dependencies in projects. npm allows developers to easily install, update, and remove packages from their projects, providing a more robust and efficient way to manage dependencies.

  2. Task Automation: CodeKit focuses on task automation and optimizing project workflows for frontend development. It provides features like minification, compilation, and live browser reloading to enhance the development process. On the other hand, npm is primarily used for managing packages and modules, and while it can be used for task automation through npm scripts, it is not as feature-rich as CodeKit in this aspect.

  3. Platform Compatibility: Another important difference is the platform compatibility of CodeKit and npm. CodeKit is only available for macOS, meaning developers using other operating systems like Windows or Linux cannot utilize its features. On the contrary, npm is a cross-platform package manager that can be used on any operating system, making it more versatile and accessible to a wider range of developers.

  4. Community Support: npm has a large and active community of developers contributing to its ecosystem, providing extensive documentation, tutorials, and support for users. This community-driven aspect of npm ensures that developers have access to a wealth of resources and solutions to common problems. In comparison, CodeKit, being a commercial tool, may have limited community support and resources available.

  5. Customization and Flexibility: npm offers more flexibility and customization options compared to CodeKit. Developers can choose from a wide range of packages and modules available on npm to tailor their development environment according to their specific needs. CodeKit, on the other hand, provides a more streamlined and user-friendly approach, which may limit the level of customization possible in the development process.

  6. Integration with Build Tools: npm seamlessly integrates with popular build tools like Webpack, Gulp, and Grunt, allowing developers to leverage the power of these tools alongside npm's package management capabilities. This integration enables more advanced build processes and automation workflows, enhancing the overall development experience. CodeKit, while offering its own set of features, may not have the same level of compatibility and integration with external build tools.

In Summary, CodeKit and npm differ in package management, task automation, platform compatibility, community support, customization options, and integration with build tools, making each tool suitable for specific development needs and preferences.

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Advice on npm, CodeKit

StackShare
StackShare

Apr 23, 2019

Needs adviceonNode.jsNode.jsnpmnpmYarnYarn

From a StackShare Community member: “I’m a freelance web developer (I mostly use Node.js) and for future projects I’m debating between npm or Yarn as my default package manager. I’m a minimalist so I hate installing software if I don’t need to- in this case that would be Yarn. For those who made the switch from npm to Yarn, what benefits have you noticed? For those who stuck with npm, are you happy you with it?"

294k views294k
Comments
Mark
Mark

CTO at Gemsotec bvba

Apr 25, 2019

ReviewonReactReactTypeScriptTypeScriptYarnYarn

I use npm because I also mainly use React and TypeScript. Since several typings (from DefinitelyTyped) depend on the React typings, Yarn tends to mess up which leads to duplicate libraries present (different versions of the same type definition), which hinders the Typescript compiler. Npm always resolves to a single version per transitive dependency. At least that's my experience with both.

251k views251k
Comments
Oleksandr
Oleksandr

Senior Software Engineer at joyn

Dec 7, 2019

Decided

As we have to build the application for many different TV platforms we want to split the application logic from the device/platform specific code. Previously we had different repositories and it was very hard to keep the development process when changes were done in multiple repositories, as we had to synchronize code reviews as well as merging and then updating the dependencies of projects. This issues would be even more critical when building the project from scratch what we did at Joyn. Therefor to keep all code in one place, at the same time keeping in separated in different modules we decided to give a try to monorepo. First we tried out lerna which was fine at the beginning, but later along the way we had issues with adding new dependencies which came out of the blue and were not easy to fix. Next round of evolution was yarn workspaces, we are still using it and are pretty happy with dev experience it provides. And one more advantage we got when switched to yarn workspaces that we also switched from npm to yarn what improved the state of the lock file a lot, because with npm package-lock file was updated every time you run npm install, frequent updates of package-lock file were causing very often merge conflicts. So right now we not just having faster dependencies installation time but also no conflicts coming from lock file.

310k views310k
Comments

Detailed Comparison

npm
npm
CodeKit
CodeKit

npm is the command-line interface to the npm ecosystem. It is battle-tested, surprisingly flexible, and used by hundreds of thousands of JavaScript developers every day.

Process Less, Sass, Stylus, Jade, Haml, Slim, CoffeeScript, Javascript, and Compass files automatically each time you save. Easily set options for each language.

-
Compile Everything - Less, Sass, Stylus, CoffeeScript, Typescript, Jade, Haml, Slim, Markdown & Javascript.;Auto-Refresh Browsers - Refresh browsers across devices: Mac, PC, iOS, Android & kitchen fridge. Never hit command+R again.;Bower Built-In - Install 6,000+ components with a single click: Bootstrap, jQuery, Modernizr, Zurb Foundation, even WordPress.;It Just Works - There's no grunting at a command line and zero setup. Just drop your project on the app and go.
Statistics
GitHub Stars
17.6K
GitHub Stars
-
GitHub Forks
3.0K
GitHub Forks
-
Stacks
137.4K
Stacks
69
Followers
82.2K
Followers
103
Votes
1.6K
Votes
28
Pros & Cons
Pros
  • 648
    Best package management system for javascript
  • 382
    Open-source
  • 327
    Great community
  • 148
    More packages than rubygems, pypi, or packagist
  • 112
    Nice people matter
Cons
  • 5
    Bad at package versioning and being deterministic
  • 5
    Problems with lockfiles
  • 3
    Node-gyp takes forever
  • 1
    Super slow
Pros
  • 8
    Easy to configure
  • 8
    Instant setup for quick experiments
  • 7
    Cross device live reloading
  • 5
    Any editor OK
Integrations
No integrations available
Bower
Bower
Foundation
Foundation
Bourbon
Bourbon
Compass
Compass

What are some alternatives to npm, CodeKit?

RequireJS

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.

Browserify

Browserify

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

Yarn

Yarn

Yarn caches every package it downloads so it never needs to again. It also parallelizes operations to maximize resource utilization so install times are faster than ever.

Prepros

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.

Component

Component

Component's philosophy is the UNIX philosophy of the web - to create a platform for small, reusable components that consist of JS, CSS, HTML, images, fonts, etc. With its well-defined specs, using Component means not worrying about most frontend problems such as package management, publishing components to a registry, or creating a custom build process for every single app.

LiveReload

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.

Verdaccio

Verdaccio

A simple, zero-config-required local private npm registry. Comes out of the box with its own tiny database, and the ability to proxy other registries (eg. npmjs.org), caching the downloaded modules along the way.

pip

pip

It is the package installer for Python. You can use pip to install packages from the Python Package Index and other indexes.

Duo

Duo

Duo is a next-generation package manager that blends the best ideas from Component, Browserify and Go to make organizing and writing front-end code quick and painless.

Pika.dev

Pika.dev

It is a new kind of package registry for the modern web. It handles formatting, configuring, building and publishing every package on the registry, so that individual authors don't have to.

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