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Metro Bundler vs Webpack: What are the differences?
Introduction
This Markdown code provides a comparison between Metro Bundler and Webpack, highlighting their key differences.
- Bundler Type: Metro Bundler is the default JavaScript bundler for React Native projects, while Webpack is a widely used bundler primarily for web development.
- Configuration: Metro Bundler requires minimal configuration as it aims to be a zero-configuration bundler, whereas Webpack is highly configurable and allows for extensive customization through its configuration file.
- Hot Module Replacement (HMR): Metro Bundler provides built-in HMR support for React Native development, allowing for fast updates during development without manually refreshing the app. Webpack also supports HMR, but it requires additional configuration and plugins to enable this feature.
- Module Resolution: Metro Bundler uses a resolution algorithm specific to React Native, which allows for easy importing of dependencies without the need for additional configuration in most cases. Webpack, on the other hand, requires explicit configuration for resolving different module types (e.g., JavaScript, CSS, etc.) and may have additional complexities when dealing with dependencies.
- Built-in Polyfills: Metro Bundler includes a set of built-in polyfills for React Native apps, which means developers don't need to explicitly include them in their code. Webpack does not provide built-in polyfills and requires developers to manually include and configure polyfills for different environments, such as older browsers.
- Size and Performance: Metro Bundler aims to optimize for performance in React Native development by providing a fast bundling process with minimal overhead. Webpack, being a more general-purpose bundler, may have a larger bundle size and slightly slower build times due to its extensive feature set and configurability.
In summary, Metro Bundler is a zero-configuration bundler specifically designed for React Native projects, providing built-in support for HMR and polyfills, whereas Webpack is a highly configurable bundler widely used in web development, with additional complex configuration options for module resolution and polyfills.
The developer experience Webpack gave us was not delighting anyone. It works and is stable and consistent. It is also slow and frustrating. We decided to check out Vite as an alternative when moving to Vue 3 and have been amazed. It is very early in development and there are plenty of rough edges, but it has been a breath of fresh air not waiting for anything to update. It is so fast we have found ourselves using devtools in browser less because changing styles is just as fast in code. We felt confident using the tool because although it is early in its development, the production build is still provided by Rollup which is a mature tool. We also felt optimistic that as good as it is right now, it will only continue to get better, as it is being worked on very actively. So far we are really happy with the choice.
I could define the next points why we have to migrate:
- Decrease build time of our application. (It was the main cause).
- Also
jspm installtakes much more time thannpm 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.
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.
Pros of Metro Bundler
Pros of Webpack
- Most powerful bundler309
- Built-in dev server with livereload182
- Can handle all types of assets142
- Easy configuration87
- Laravel-mix22
- Overengineered, Underdeveloped4
- Makes it easy to bundle static assets2
- Webpack-Encore2
- Redundant1
- Better support in Browser Dev-Tools1
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Cons of Metro Bundler
Cons of Webpack
- Hard to configure15
- No clear direction5
- Spaghetti-Code out of the box2
- SystemJS integration is quite lackluster2
- Loader architecture is quite a mess (unreliable/buggy)2
- Fire and Forget mentality of Core-Developers2
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What is Metro Bundler?
What is Webpack?
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