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Git vs npm: What are the differences?
Introduction
Git and npm both serve important roles in the world of software development, but they differ significantly in their functionalities and purposes. This markdown code will present the key differences between Git and npm, explaining their unique characteristics and features.
Git: Distributed Version Control System (DVCS) for Source Code Management: Git is primarily used for version control and source code management. It allows developers to keep track of changes made to a codebase, collaborate with team members, and easily merge and manage multiple branches of code. Git ensures the integrity and consistency of the code and allows developers to revert to previous versions if needed.
npm: Package Manager for JavaScript: npm, on the other hand, is a package manager specifically designed for JavaScript. It helps developers easily share and reuse code by providing a vast repository of libraries and packages. npm allows developers to manage dependencies, handle project dependencies automatically, and keep track of the versions of installed packages. It provides tools to publish, discover, and install packages, making it a vital component of modern JavaScript development.
Git: Entire codebase stored locally: Git stores the complete history and codebase locally on each developer's machine. This allows developers to work offline, make changes, and commit them to their local repository. Git also enables branching and merging, which facilitates collaboration and helps in managing complex development workflows.
npm: Relies on remote package registry: In contrast, npm relies on a central remote registry where packages are stored. When a package is required, npm automatically downloads it from the registry and installs it in the project directory. This centralized approach ensures consistency and ease of package management but requires an internet connection for package installation and updates.
Git: Tracks changes at a fine-grained level: Git tracks the changes made to each file and line of code, providing detailed information about who made the changes and when. This fine-grained tracking allows for precise version control and makes it easier to identify and fix issues. Git also enables rolling back to previous versions and cherry-picking specific changes from different branches.
npm: Simplifies dependency management and versioning: npm simplifies the management of project dependencies by automatically resolving and installing the required packages. It also ensures version compatibility by using semantic versioning. Developers can easily specify the versions of dependencies in a package.json file, and npm handles the installation of the correct versions.
In summary, Git is primarily a distributed version control system used for tracking changes in source code, offering features like branching and merging. On the other hand, npm is a package manager designed specifically for JavaScript, providing a repository of libraries and simplifying dependency management for projects.
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?"
We use Yarn because it allows us to more simply manage our node_modules. It also simplifies commands and increases speed when installing modules. Our teams module download time was cut in half after switching from NPM to Yarn. We now require all employees to use Yarn (to prevent errors with package-lock.json and yarn.lock).
I use npm since new version is pretty fast as well (Yarn may be still faster a bit but the difference isn't huge). No need for other dependency and mainly Yarn sometimes do not work. Sometimes when I want to install project dependencies I got error using Yarn but with npm everything is installed correctly.
p.s.
I am not sure about the performance of the latest version of npm, whether it is different from my understanding of it below. Because I use npm very rarely when I had the following knowledge.
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I use Yarn because, first, yarn is the first tool to lock the version. Second, although npm also supports the lock version, when you use npm to lock the version, and then use package-lock.json on other systems, package-lock.json Will be modified. You understand what I mean, when you deploy projects based on Git...
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.
As far as I know Yarn is a super module of NPM. But it still needs npm to run.
Yarn was developed by Facebook's guys to fix some npm issues and performance.
If you use the last version of npm most of this problem does not exist anymore.
You can choose the option which makes you more confortable. I like using yarn because I'm used to it.
In the end the packages will be the same. Just try both and choose the one you feel more confortable. :)
I am a minimalist too. I once had issues with installing Nuxt.js using NPM so I had to install Yarn but I also found that the Dev experience was much better
I use npm because its packaged with node installation and handles npm tokens in CI/CD tools for private packages/libraries.
I use npm because it has a lot of community support and the performance difference with alternative tool is not so significant for me.
Yarn made it painless for the team to sync on versions of packages that we use on the project <3
I use Yarn because it outputs nice progress messages with cute emoji and installs packages quickly if the package is cached. Also, Yarn creates yarn.lock
file which makes the developer use the consistent environment.
You should use whichever had the best DX (developer experience) for your team. If you are doing a massive front-end project, consider yarn if not only because it makes it a snap to go from zero to ready. What some people say about npm
being more stable or easier for smaller projects is highly true as well. (not to mention, you sometimes have to install yarn) But, note that official NodeJS Docker images ship with both npm and yarn. If you want to use yarn, put package-lock=false
and optionally save-exact=true
in your project's .npmrc
file. Compare whether you prefer the ergonomics of yarn global add
over npm install -g
or see fewer meaningless warnings for the specific set of dependencies you leverage.
I use npm because its the official package manager for Node. It's reliability, security and speed has increased over time so the battle is over!
We tend to stick to npm, yarn is only a fancy alternative, not 10x better. Using a self -hosted private repository (via sinopia/npm-mirror) make package locking (mostly) pointless.
I use Yarn because it process my dependencies way faster, predictable deps resolution order, upgrade-interactive is very handy + some Yarn specific features (workspaces, Plug’n’Play alternative installation strategy) ...
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.
This was no real choice - we switched the moment Yarn was available, and never looked back. Yarn is the only reasonable frontend package manager that's actually being developed. They even aim to heal the node_modules madness with v2! Npm is just copying its ideas on top of introducing massive bugs with every change.
Pros of Git
- Distributed version control system1.4K
- Efficient branching and merging1.1K
- Fast959
- Open source845
- Better than svn726
- Great command-line application368
- Simple306
- Free291
- Easy to use232
- Does not require server222
- Distributed27
- Small & Fast22
- Feature based workflow18
- Staging Area15
- Most wide-spread VSC13
- Role-based codelines11
- Disposable Experimentation11
- Frictionless Context Switching7
- Data Assurance6
- Efficient5
- Just awesome4
- Github integration3
- Easy branching and merging3
- Compatible2
- Flexible2
- Possible to lose history and commits2
- Rebase supported natively; reflog; access to plumbing1
- Light1
- Team Integration1
- Fast, scalable, distributed revision control system1
- Easy1
- Flexible, easy, Safe, and fast1
- CLI is great, but the GUI tools are awesome1
- It's what you do1
- Phinx0
Pros of npm
- Best package management system for javascript647
- Open-source382
- Great community327
- More packages than rubygems, pypi, or packagist148
- Nice people matter112
- As fast as yarn but really free of facebook6
- Audit feature6
- Good following4
- Super fast1
- Stability1
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Cons of Git
- Hard to learn16
- Inconsistent command line interface11
- Easy to lose uncommitted work9
- Worst documentation ever possibly made8
- Awful merge handling5
- Unexistent preventive security flows3
- Rebase hell3
- Ironically even die-hard supporters screw up badly2
- When --force is disabled, cannot rebase2
- Doesn't scale for big data1
Cons of npm
- Problems with lockfiles5
- Bad at package versioning and being deterministic5
- Node-gyp takes forever3
- Super slow1