What is Babel?

According to babeljs.io

Babel is a toolchain that is mainly used to convert ECMAScript 2015+ code into a backwards-compatible version of JavaScript in current and older browsers or environments.

• It is a great tool for backwards compatibility of modern javascript code.
• With babel, we can write modern javascript that are not implemented in web browsers yet.
• It compiles down the new modern javascript syntax into older javascript code that the browser can understand
• It also converts React JSX syntax into browser understandable javascript code.

In other words Babel is a free and open-source JavaScript transcompiler that is mainly used to convert ECMAScript 2015+ code into a backwards compatible version of JavaScript that can be run by older JavaScript engines

What is a transcompiler?

• A transcompiler, or transpiler is a type of translator that takes the source code of a program written in a programming language as its input and produces an equivalent source code in the same or a different programming language
• It is also known as source-to-source translator, source-to-source compiler.
• Babel is a popular transcompiler.