Grunt vs Just vs Webpack

Overview

Grunt

Stacks8.8K

Followers5.6K

Votes697

GitHub Stars12.3K

Forks1.5K

Webpack

Stacks45.0K

Followers28.1K

Votes752

GitHub Stars65.7K

Forks9.2K

Just

Stacks31

Followers13

Votes0

GitHub Stars2.0K

Forks92

Grunt vs Just vs Webpack: What are the differences?

<Write Introduction here>

1. **Task Runners vs Module Bundlers**: Grunt and Gulp are task runners, focusing on automating tasks, while Webpack is a module bundler that packages resources like CSS or JavaScript files.
2. **Configuration Over Convention vs Convention Over Configuration**: Grunt and Gulp require explicit configuration, whereas Webpack follows a convention-based approach, reducing the need for configuration.
3. **Parallel vs Sequential Processing**: Grunt and Gulp perform tasks in a sequential manner, while Webpack can process tasks in parallel, improving build times.
4. **Ease of Use**: Grunt is known for its steep learning curve due to the extensive configuration required, Gulp is more approachable with its code-over-configuration approach, and Webpack offers great flexibility but can be complex for beginners.
5. **Plugin Ecosystem**: Grunt and Gulp have a wide array of plugins available for different tasks, while Webpack has a more focused plugin ecosystem for specific Webpack-related functionalities.
6. **Code Splitting and Tree Shaking**: Webpack excels in code splitting, allowing for smaller bundles and faster load times, as well as tree shaking to eliminate unused code, optimizing the bundle size further.

In Summary, Grunt, Gulp, and Webpack differ in their approach to automation, configuration, processing, ease of use, plugin ecosystem, and optimization techniques.

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CLI (Node.js)

Manual

Detailed Comparison

Grunt	Webpack	Just
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.	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.	It is a build task definition library. It stands on the shoulders of two excellent and well tested libraries: undertaker and yargs. It also provides what we call "stacks" to complete the workflow of building a repository.
-	Bundles ES Modules, CommonJS, and AMD modules (even combined); Can create a single bundle or multiple chunks that are asynchronously loaded at runtime (to reduce initial loading time); Dependencies are resolved during compilation, reducing the runtime size; Loaders can preprocess files while compiling, e.g. TypeScript to JavaScript, Handlebars strings to compiled functions, images to Base64, etc; Highly modular plugin system to do whatever else your application requires	project scaffold tool
Statistics
GitHub Stars 12.3K	GitHub Stars 65.7K	GitHub Stars 2.0K
GitHub Forks 1.5K	GitHub Forks 9.2K	GitHub Forks 92
Stacks 8.8K	Stacks 45.0K	Stacks 31
Followers 5.6K	Followers 28.1K	Followers 13
Votes 697	Votes 752	Votes 0
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 309 Most powerful bundler 182 Built-in dev server with livereload 142 Can handle all types of assets 87 Easy configuration 22 Laravel-mix Cons 15 Hard to configure 5 No clear direction 2 SystemJS integration is quite lackluster 2 Spaghetti-Code out of the box 2 Fire and Forget mentality of Core-Developers	No community feedback yet
Integrations
No integrations available	JavaScript	TypeScript JavaScript Jest

What are some alternatives to Grunt, Webpack, Just?

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.

Brunch

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

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

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 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

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

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

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

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

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.

Related Comparisons

Grunt vs Just vs Webpack: What are the differences?

<Write Introduction here>

1. **Task Runners vs Module Bundlers**: Grunt and Gulp are task runners, focusing on automating tasks, while Webpack is a module bundler that packages resources like CSS or JavaScript files.
2. **Configuration Over Convention vs Convention Over Configuration**: Grunt and Gulp require explicit configuration, whereas Webpack follows a convention-based approach, reducing the need for configuration.
3. **Parallel vs Sequential Processing**: Grunt and Gulp perform tasks in a sequential manner, while Webpack can process tasks in parallel, improving build times.
4. **Ease of Use**: Grunt is known for its steep learning curve due to the extensive configuration required, Gulp is more approachable with its code-over-configuration approach, and Webpack offers great flexibility but can be complex for beginners.
5. **Plugin Ecosystem**: Grunt and Gulp have a wide array of plugins available for different tasks, while Webpack has a more focused plugin ecosystem for specific Webpack-related functionalities.
6. **Code Splitting and Tree Shaking**: Webpack excels in code splitting, allowing for smaller bundles and faster load times, as well as tree shaking to eliminate unused code, optimizing the bundle size further.

In Summary, Grunt, Gulp, and Webpack differ in their approach to automation, configuration, processing, ease of use, plugin ecosystem, and optimization techniques.

Grunt vs Just vs Webpack

Overview