Overview

npm

Stacks126.4K

Followers82.2K

Votes1.6K

GitHub Stars17.6K

Forks3.0K

CocoaPods

Stacks1.8K

Followers112

Votes0

GitHub Stars14.8K

Forks2.7K

CocoaPods vs npm: What are the differences?

Introduction

In this markdown code, we will compare the key differences between CocoaPods and npm, which are package managers used in software development.

Programming Language Compatibility: CocoaPods is primarily used for managing dependencies in iOS and macOS development projects using Objective-C or Swift programming languages. On the other hand, npm is a package manager for JavaScript and is commonly used in web development projects.
Dependency Resolution: CocoaPods uses a centralized repository of libraries and frameworks specifically designed for iOS and macOS development. It resolves dependencies by checking compatibility and versions specified in the Podfile. In contrast, npm uses a decentralized package registry and offers a wider range of packages, libraries, and frameworks for various JavaScript-based projects.
Configuration and Installation: CocoaPods requires a macOS environment and is typically installed through RubyGems, a package manager for Ruby. It also requires Xcode to build and compile the dependencies. On the contrary, npm comes bundled with Node.js, making it platform-independent and easily installable using the Node Package Manager.
Project Structure: In CocoaPods, the dependencies are managed using a Podfile, which specifies the required libraries and their specific versions. It integrates with Xcode projects by generating and managing an Xcode workspace that includes the dependencies. In npm, the dependencies are managed through a package.json file, which contains a list of required packages and their respective versions.
Community and Ecosystem: CocoaPods has a well-established community and ecosystem specifically focused on iOS and macOS development. It offers a curated collection of libraries and frameworks tailored for Apple platforms. On the other hand, npm has a larger and more diverse community catering to a wide range of JavaScript-based projects, including web development, server-side scripting, and command-line tools.
Support and Documentation: Due to its specialization in Apple platforms, CocoaPods maintains comprehensive documentation targeted specifically at iOS and macOS developers. It provides detailed guidelines and tutorials on how to integrate dependencies into Xcode projects. Conversely, npm offers extensive documentation covering various aspects of JavaScript development, making it accessible to a broader audience.

In summary, CocoaPods and npm differ in programming language compatibility, dependency resolution, configuration and installation process, project structure, community and ecosystem, and support/documentation. CocoaPods focuses on iOS and macOS development using Objective-C or Swift, while npm is primarily used for JavaScript-based projects with a wider community and package registry.

Advice on npm, CocoaPods

StackShare

Apr 23, 2019

Needs adviceon

Node.js

npm

Yarn

From a StackShare Community member: “I’m a freelance web developer (I mostly use Node.js) and for future projects I’m debating between npm or Yarn as my default package manager. I’m a minimalist so I hate installing software if I don’t need to- in this case that would be Yarn. For those who made the switch from npm to Yarn, what benefits have you noticed? For those who stuck with npm, are you happy you with it?"

294k views294k

Comments

Mark

CTO at Gemsotec bvba

Apr 25, 2019

Reviewon

React

TypeScript

Yarn

I use npm because I also mainly use React and TypeScript. Since several typings (from DefinitelyTyped) depend on the React typings, Yarn tends to mess up which leads to duplicate libraries present (different versions of the same type definition), which hinders the Typescript compiler. Npm always resolves to a single version per transitive dependency. At least that's my experience with both.

251k views251k

Comments

Oleksandr

Senior Software Engineer at joyn

Dec 7, 2019

Decided

As we have to build the application for many different TV platforms we want to split the application logic from the device/platform specific code. Previously we had different repositories and it was very hard to keep the development process when changes were done in multiple repositories, as we had to synchronize code reviews as well as merging and then updating the dependencies of projects. This issues would be even more critical when building the project from scratch what we did at Joyn. Therefor to keep all code in one place, at the same time keeping in separated in different modules we decided to give a try to monorepo. First we tried out lerna which was fine at the beginning, but later along the way we had issues with adding new dependencies which came out of the blue and were not easy to fix. Next round of evolution was yarn workspaces, we are still using it and are pretty happy with dev experience it provides. And one more advantage we got when switched to yarn workspaces that we also switched from npm to yarn what improved the state of the lock file a lot, because with npm package-lock file was updated every time you run npm install, frequent updates of package-lock file were causing very often merge conflicts. So right now we not just having faster dependencies installation time but also no conflicts coming from lock file.

310k views310k

Comments

Detailed Comparison

npm	CocoaPods
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.	It supports almost every way you would want to get source code, git, svn, bzr, http and hg. You can use your own private code repository to manage your own dependencies. It only requires a git repo, no server necessary.
-	Incremental Installation; Support Multiple Swift Versions & Pod Projects; Define App Specs for Example Apps; Dynamic Scheme Launch Arguments/Environments; Automatic Generation of .xcfilelist
Statistics
GitHub Stars 17.6K	GitHub Stars 14.8K
GitHub Forks 3.0K	GitHub Forks 2.7K
Stacks 126.4K	Stacks 1.8K
Followers 82.2K	Followers 112
Votes 1.6K	Votes 0
Pros & Cons
Pros 648 Best package management system for javascript 382 Open-source 327 Great community 148 More packages than rubygems, pypi, or packagist 112 Nice people matter Cons 5 Bad at package versioning and being deterministic 5 Problems with lockfiles 3 Node-gyp takes forever 1 Super slow	No community feedback yet
Integrations
No integrations available	Ruby Git macOS SVN (Subversion) Mercurial

What are some alternatives to npm, CocoaPods?

RequireJS

RequireJS loads plain JavaScript files as well as more defined modules. It is optimized for in-browser use, including in a Web Worker, but it can be used in other JavaScript environments, like Rhino and Node. It implements the Asynchronous Module API. Using a modular script loader like RequireJS will improve the speed and quality of your code.

Browserify

Browserify lets you require('modules') in the browser by bundling up all of your dependencies.

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.

Component

Component's philosophy is the UNIX philosophy of the web - to create a platform for small, reusable components that consist of JS, CSS, HTML, images, fonts, etc. With its well-defined specs, using Component means not worrying about most frontend problems such as package management, publishing components to a registry, or creating a custom build process for every single app.

Verdaccio

A simple, zero-config-required local private npm registry. Comes out of the box with its own tiny database, and the ability to proxy other registries (eg. npmjs.org), caching the downloaded modules along the way.

pip

It is the package installer for Python. You can use pip to install packages from the Python Package Index and other indexes.

Duo

Duo is a next-generation package manager that blends the best ideas from Component, Browserify and Go to make organizing and writing front-end code quick and painless.

Pika.dev

It is a new kind of package registry for the modern web. It handles formatting, configuring, building and publishing every package on the registry, so that individual authors don't have to.

Bundler

It provides a consistent environment for Ruby projects by tracking and installing the exact gems and versions that are needed. It is an exit from dependency hell, and ensures that the gems you need are present in development, staging, and production.