Vite or Webpack

Webpack

Is a popular build tool for modern JavaScript applications that is designed to bundle and optimize static assets such as JavaScript, CSS, and images. It has a wide range of features and is highly configurable, which makes it a good choice for a variety of projects.

Vite

As an alternative, on the other hand, is a newer build tool that is designed to be fast and lightweight. It uses native ES module imports to speed up development builds, and it has a focus on simplicity and ease of use.

Vite also leverages esbuild for transpiling TypeScript into JavaScript. This combination allows for faster transpilation and development server start times compared to traditional bundlers.

Since vite takes advantage of the availability of native ES modules in the browser and serves source code over native ESM It needs to transform and serve source code on demand as the browser requests it, reducing the need for upfront bundling.

Vite or Webpack?

• Vite is often a faster and more lightweight alternative
• It has a smaller feature set and is not as configurable as Webpack.
• Webpack is a powerful and configurable build tool that is suitable for a wide range of projects

Faster in what?

Vite is primarily designed to be fast in development builds, (DX: developer experience) and can be a significant advantage during development, as it allows you to make changes to your code and see the results almost instantly.

In production (UX), the speed of the build tool is usually less of a concern, as the build process is typically only run once before deploying the application.
In this case, the main advantage of Vite is its simplicity and ease of use, as it can be easier to set up and maintain than more complex build tools like Webpack.

Plus Vite + esbuild might encounter certain challenges [1]:

1. Limited support for export in embedded-in-app browsers on Android.
2. Slower loading time due to multiple network requests for individual modules (when not bundling code)

Under the hood

Are you curios how they work differently under the hood, let's watch these two videos
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nBYo2B2XN5s
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5IG4UmULyoA

Learn more:

1 - ecmascript 6 - Webpack vs ES6 modules - Stack Overflow
2 - How we use ES modules to speed up frontend development in a large application | Shortcut Blog
3 - Vite vs. Webpack: A Head-to-Head Comparison - Kinsta®

Summary

Overall, Vite is designed to be fast in development builds and easy to use in both development and production. However, it may not be the best choice for all projects, as it has a smaller feature set and is less configurable than some other build tools.

Any thoughts?

All the best
Hash

Comments

[NLxDoDge]

I use Vite, but only because it's being used in Vue3 and Nuxt3.

But it looks to be way faster, but if you're content with webpack in your current app, then why change?

Unless the change makes your app compile from 30 seconds to 1 second or something crazy like that I wouldn't bother switching.

[Hash]

Another optimization option is to retain webpack and utilize esbuild as a loader instead of babel or ts-loader, which can lead to a slight improvement in speed. the same way as vite uses

[Rense Bakker]

I would argue vite is atleast as extensible as webpack if not more. There are a ton of plugins for vite and its easy to write your own as well. Not to mention webpack is in the process of being replaced with turbopack...

[José Pablo Ramírez Vargas]

I got my first taste of Vite while writing this example for wj-config. I like it. I like it A LOT.

I also tested quickly Vite + React and it works better than CRA, I would say in my not-so-expert opinion.