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Babel vs Webpack: What are the differences?
Babel: Use next generation JavaScript, today. Babel will turn your ES6+ code into ES5 friendly code, so you can start using it right now without waiting for browser support; Webpack: 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.
Babel can be classified as a tool in the "JavaScript Compilers" category, while Webpack is grouped under "JS Build Tools / JS Task Runners".
"Modern Javascript works with all browsers", "Open source" and "Integration with lots of tools" are the key factors why developers consider Babel; whereas "Most powerful bundler", "Built-in dev server with livereload" and "Can handle all types of assets" are the primary reasons why Webpack is favored.
Babel 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 Babel with 33.5K GitHub stars and 3.57K GitHub forks.
According to the StackShare community, Webpack has a broader approval, being mentioned in 2180 company stacks & 1297 developers stacks; compared to Babel, which is listed in 887 company stacks and 661 developer stacks.
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 Babel
- Modern Javascript works with all browsers165
- Open source77
- Integration with lots of tools60
- Easy setup56
- Very active on github26
- Source maps2
- JSX2
- Love2
- Extensions1
Pros of Webpack
- Most powerful bundler308
- Built-in dev server with livereload181
- 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 Babel
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 Babel?
What is Webpack?
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