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Browserify vs Webpack: What are the differences?
Browserify: Browser-side require() the node.js way. Browserify lets you require('modules') in the browser by bundling up all of your dependencies; 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.
Browserify and Webpack are primarily classified as "Front End Package Manager" and "JS Build Tools / JS Task Runners" tools respectively.
"Node style browser code" is the primary reason why developers consider Browserify over the competitors, whereas "Most powerful bundler" was stated as the key factor in picking Webpack.
Browserify 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 Browserify with 12.7K GitHub stars and 1.12K GitHub forks.
Instagram, Pinterest, and 9GAG are some of the popular companies that use Webpack, whereas Browserify is used by Cloudflare, Inc., UNION, and Chooos. Webpack has a broader approval, being mentioned in 2181 company stacks & 1298 developers stacks; compared to Browserify, which is listed in 111 company stacks and 42 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 Browserify
- Node style browser code75
- Load modules installed by npm52
- Works great with gulp.js45
- NPM modules in the brower38
- Open source34
- Node streams16
- Easy setup1
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 Browserify
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 Browserify?
What is Webpack?
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What companies use Browserify?
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