esbuild-wasm

What is esbuild-wasm?

The esbuild-wasm package is a WebAssembly-based version of the esbuild bundler and minifier. It provides extremely fast build times and is designed to be used in environments where native binaries cannot be executed, such as in browsers or some serverless platforms. It supports transforming, bundling, and minifying JavaScript and TypeScript files.

What are esbuild-wasm's main functionalities?

Bundling JavaScript

This code initializes esbuild-wasm and bundles a JavaScript file, outputting a single bundled file. It demonstrates how to set up and execute a basic bundling process.

const esbuild = require('esbuild-wasm');
esbuild.initialize({ worker: true, wasmURL: '/path/to/esbuild.wasm' }).then(() => {
  esbuild.build({
    entryPoints: ['input.js'],
    bundle: true,
    outfile: 'output.js'
  }).catch(() => process.exit(1));
});

Minifying CSS

This example shows how to use esbuild-wasm to minify a CSS file. It sets up the esbuild environment and performs minification, outputting the minified CSS.

const esbuild = require('esbuild-wasm');
esbuild.initialize({ worker: true, wasmURL: '/path/to/esbuild.wasm' }).then(() => {
  esbuild.build({
    entryPoints: ['input.css'],
    minify: true,
    outfile: 'output.css'
  }).catch(() => process.exit(1));
});

Transpiling TypeScript

This code snippet demonstrates how to transpile TypeScript into JavaScript using esbuild-wasm. It includes setting up the environment, specifying the loader for TypeScript files, and bundling the output.

const esbuild = require('esbuild-wasm');
esbuild.initialize({ worker: true, wasmURL: '/path/to/esbuild.wasm' }).then(() => {
  esbuild.build({
    entryPoints: ['input.ts'],
    loader: { '.ts': 'ts' },
    outfile: 'output.js',
    bundle: true
  }).catch(() => process.exit(1));
});

Other packages similar to esbuild-wasm

webpack

Webpack is a popular JavaScript module bundler with a vast ecosystem of plugins. It offers more configuration options and plugins compared to esbuild-wasm but is generally slower in terms of build speed.

rollup

Rollup is another module bundler that focuses on producing efficient bundles. It is known for its tree-shaking capabilities, which are similar to esbuild-wasm, but Rollup typically has slower build times and less efficient minification.

parcel

Parcel is a web application bundler that requires zero configuration for quick setup. It provides fast build times similar to esbuild-wasm and supports various file types natively, but it might not reach the same speed for larger projects.