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luiz tanure
luiz tanure

Posted on • Originally published at letanure.dev

From Gulp to Webpack – Evolving Build Tools

#webpack #gulp #tooling #javascript

Note: This article was originally published on October 15, 2016. Some information may be outdated.

Many projects that started with Grunt or Gulp switched to Webpack by late 2016 to get built‑in module bundling, dev server live reload, and smarter code splitting.

Two mental models

Gulp / Grunt

  • You write JavaScript tasks (gulp.task('sass', ...)) that pipe files through a series of plugins.
  • Output goes to dist/, then you include built assets with <script> tags.
  • Responsibility for dependency graph and live reload belongs to plugins (gulp‑watch, browser‑sync).

Webpack

  • You describe what the final bundles should look like (entry, output) and let Webpack walk the dependency graph.
  • Transforms happen through loaders (e.g. babel-loader).
  • webpack-dev-server serves bundles from memory and applies Hot Module Replacement automatically.

Both tools use Node streams, but Gulp focuses on file pipelines, while Webpack focuses on module graphs. citeturn0search0turn0search4

Quick migration cheat sheet

Need Gulp/Grunt plugin Webpack recipe
ES6 → ES5 gulp-babel babel-loader + .babelrc
Sass → CSS gulp-sass sass-loader + MiniCssExtractPlugin
Minify JS gulp-uglify TerserPlugin (built‑in in prod mode)
Live reload browser-sync / gulp-livereload webpack-dev-server --hot
Cache‑bust file names gulp-rev [contenthash] in output.filename

(WebPack cheat sheet adapted from Devhints) citeturn0search6

Minimal Webpack setup 

npm init -y

# Core
npm install --save-dev webpack@1 webpack-cli@1 webpack-dev-server@1

# Transpile ES6
npm install --save-dev babel-core babel-loader babel-preset-es2015
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Create webpack.config.js

module.exports = {
  entry: './src/index.js',
  output: { filename: 'bundle.[hash].js', path: __dirname + '/dist' },
  module: {
    loaders: [{ test: /\.js$/, loader: 'babel', exclude: /node_modules/ }]
  },
  devServer: { hot: true, inline: true }
};
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Start in dev mode:

webpack-dev-server --hot --open
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Common tasks rewritten

Transpile & bundle JS 

# Gulp
gulp babel

# Webpack - just run build, loader handles Babel
webpack --mode production
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Auto‑reload on file save 

# Gulp + BrowserSync
browser-sync reload

# Webpack dev server
webpack-dev-server --hot
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Minify for production 

# Gulp
gulp-uglify

# Webpack prod mode enables TerserPlugin automatically
webpack --mode production
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Tips for smoother migration

  1. Keep the old Gulp build for a sprint; serve the same HTML with Webpack bundle side‑by‑side.
  2. Move JS first, then styles/images.
  3. Replace plugin chains with equivalent loaders one at a time.
  4. Use source maps (devtool: 'source-map') to debug transpiled code.
  5. Leverage webpack‑merge to separate dev and prod configs.

Webpack’s declarative approach cuts down boilerplate and enables advanced optimisations that are hard to replicate with ad‑hoc task runners.

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