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  1. Stackups
  2. DevOps
  3. Build Automation
  4. Javascript Build Tools
  5. LiveReload vs Webpack

LiveReload vs Webpack

OverviewDecisionsComparisonAlternatives

Overview

Webpack
Webpack
Stacks45.0K
Followers28.1K
Votes752
GitHub Stars65.7K
Forks9.2K
LiveReload
LiveReload
Stacks653
Followers70
Votes8
GitHub Stars1.4K
Forks164

LiveReload vs Webpack: What are the differences?

Developers describe LiveReload as "CSS edits and image changes apply live. CoffeeScript, SASS, LESS and others just work". LiveReload monitors changes in the file system. As soon as you save a file, it is preprocessed as needed, and the browser is refreshed. On the other hand, Webpack is detailed as "A bundler for javascript and friends". 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.

LiveReload can be classified as a tool in the "Live Reloading" category, while Webpack is grouped under "JS Build Tools / JS Task Runners".

"Lightweight, Gulp support" is the primary reason why developers consider LiveReload over the competitors, whereas "Most powerful bundler" was stated as the key factor in picking Webpack.

LiveReload and Webpack are both open source tools. It seems that Webpack with 49.5K GitHub stars and 6.22K forks on GitHub has more adoption than LiveReload with 1.43K GitHub stars and 180 GitHub forks.

Instagram, Pinterest, and 9GAG are some of the popular companies that use Webpack, whereas LiveReload is used by Startae, Listium, and Contratobook. Webpack has a broader approval, being mentioned in 2181 company stacks & 1298 developers stacks; compared to LiveReload, which is listed in 5 company stacks and 8 developer stacks.

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Advice on Webpack, LiveReload

Aleksandr
Aleksandr

Contract Software Engineer - Microsoft at Microsoft-365

Dec 23, 2019

Decided

Why migrated?

I could define the next points why we have to migrate:

  • Decrease build time of our application. (It was the main cause).
  • Also jspm install takes much more time than npm 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.
301k views301k
Comments
Abigail
Abigail

Dec 10, 2019

Decided

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.

224k views224k
Comments

Detailed Comparison

Webpack
Webpack
LiveReload
LiveReload

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.

LiveReload monitors changes in the file system. As soon as you save a file, it is preprocessed as needed, and the browser is refreshed.

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
-
Statistics
GitHub Stars
65.7K
GitHub Stars
1.4K
GitHub Forks
9.2K
GitHub Forks
164
Stacks
45.0K
Stacks
653
Followers
28.1K
Followers
70
Votes
752
Votes
8
Pros & Cons
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
    Spaghetti-Code out of the box
  • 2
    SystemJS integration is quite lackluster
  • 2
    Fire and Forget mentality of Core-Developers
Pros
  • 4
    Lightweight, Gulp support
  • 2
    Reliable
  • 1
    Stable in Chrome
  • 1
    More stable on windows
Integrations
JavaScript
JavaScript
No integrations available

What are some alternatives to Webpack, LiveReload?

gulp

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.

Grunt

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.

Brunch

Brunch

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

CodeKit

CodeKit

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

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.

Parcel

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

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

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

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

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.

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