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gulp

13.5K
8.9K
+ 1
1.7K
rollup

1.4K
158
+ 1
17
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gulp vs rollup: What are the differences?

Developers describe gulp as "The streaming build system". 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. On the other hand, rollup is detailed as "The next-generation JavaScript module bundler". 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.

gulp and rollup can be categorized as "JS Build Tools / JS Task Runners" tools.

gulp is an open source tool with 31.3K GitHub stars and 4.41K GitHub forks. Here's a link to gulp's open source repository on GitHub.

Typeform, PedidosYa, and Myntra are some of the popular companies that use gulp, whereas rollup is used by Repro, Yummypets, and Elementum. gulp has a broader approval, being mentioned in 1163 company stacks & 706 developers stacks; compared to rollup, which is listed in 12 company stacks and 4 developer stacks.

Decisions about gulp and rollup

We mostly use rollup to publish package onto NPM. For most all other use cases, we use the Meteor build tool (probably 99% of the time) for publishing packages. If you're using Node on FHIR you probably won't need to know rollup, unless you are somehow working on helping us publish front end user interface components using FHIR. That being said, we have been migrating away from Atmosphere package manager towards NPM. As we continue to migrate away, we may publish other NPM packages using rollup.

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Pros of gulp
Pros of rollup
  • 451
    Build speed
  • 277
    Readable
  • 244
    Code-over-configuration
  • 210
    Open source
  • 175
    Node streams
  • 107
    Intuitive
  • 83
    Lots of plugins
  • 66
    Works great with browserify
  • 45
    Easy to Learn
  • 17
    Laravel-elixir
  • 4
    build workflow
  • 3
    Great community
  • 3
    Simple & flexible
  • 2
    Clean Code
  • 2
    Stylus intergration
  • 2
    jade intergration
  • 0
    Well documented
  • 4
    Makes it easy to publish packages
  • 3
    Easier configuration
  • 2
    Better tree shaking
  • 2
    Provides smaller bundle size
  • 1
    Integrates seamlessly with SystemJS
  • 1
    Produces very clean code
  • 1
    Very reliable
  • 1
    Very robust Plugin-API (years old Plugins still work)
  • 1
    Very flexible
  • 1
    Was built with ESM-Modules in mind

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Cons of gulp
Cons of rollup
    Be the first to leave a con
    • 1
      No clear path for static assets
    • 1
      No Loader like Webpack (need to use sjs or ESM imports)
    • 1
      Almost everything needs to be a Plugin
    • 1
      Manual Chunking is a bit buggy

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    - No public GitHub repository available -

    What is 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.

    What is 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.

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    What companies use gulp?
    What companies use rollup?
    See which teams inside your own company are using gulp or rollup.
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    What tools integrate with gulp?
    What tools integrate with rollup?

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    What are some alternatives to gulp and rollup?
    Grunt
    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.
    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.
    npm
    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.
    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.
    CodeKit
    Process Less, Sass, Stylus, Jade, Haml, Slim, CoffeeScript, Javascript, and Compass files automatically each time you save. Easily set options for each language.
    See all alternatives