5 JavaScript Build Systems for 2024
Explore JavaScript build systems like Bit, Lerna, Turborepo, NX and Bazel to understand what you should be using in your next project
Deploying an application is not an easy process. You need to consider the overall:
- Code compilation
- Test execution
- Creation of the release
- Updating the latest release
If you were doing this from scratch, it would take months of operational effort to set things up and would require continuous monitoring to improve your build system consistently. This means you’re spending less time delivering business value while letting your competitors get ahead!
This is where you should consider using Build Systems in your development workflow. Build systems provide an automated process for the requirements I’ve discussed above while ensuring it improves slow-performing builds and collaboration.
Hence, this article will explore the top 5 JavaScript build systems out there and will aim to help you decide on the build system for your next big project!
1. Lerna
Lerna stands as a powerhouse for managing JavaScript projects with multiple packages. It excels in orchestrating monorepos, allowing developers to handle multiple containers within a single repository efficiently.
Strengths
- Monorepo Management: Lerna excels in handling monorepos, making managing large-scale projects with multiple packages easier.
- Versioning and Publishing: Lerna streamlines the versioning and publishing of interdependent packages, ensuring consistency across the project.
- Parallel Execution: Developers benefit from faster development cycles through Lerna’s support for parallel execution.
Weaknesses
- Learning Curve: Lerna’s learning curve can be steep for newcomers, requiring time and effort to grasp its intricacies.
- Overhead for Smaller Projects: For smaller projects, the overhead introduced by Lerna might outweigh its benefits.
Best Useful For
- Large-scale projects with interdependent packages.
- Maintaining shared components within a single repository.
2. NX
NX emerges as a sophisticated development toolkit built on top of Angular CLI. It extends its capabilities beyond Angular, supporting various frameworks such as React, Node.js, Deno, Nuxt, Next.js and more!
By prioritizing on mono repo structures, NX enhances code sharing and collaboration.
Strengths
- Intelligent Task Execution: NX optimizes builds with brilliant task execution, ensuring faster make times and improved developer productivity.
- Framework Agnosticism: NX extends its support beyond Angular, catering to various frontend and backend frameworks.
- Built-in Code Generators: The inclusion of code generators simplifies project structure maintenance.
Weaknesses
- Complex Initial Setup: NX can be complicated, especially for developers new to the toolkit.
- Perceived Weight for Smaller Projects: NX may feel heavyweight for smaller projects with more straightforward requirements.
Best Useful For
- Large-scale applications incorporating diverse technologies.
- Teams adopting mono repo architecture.
3. Bit
Bit is a modern JavaScript build system that lets you design, develop, build and version components in an independent environment. It uses the concepts of Bit Scopes that enables you to host your components for others to collaborate on. Each scope has a dependency graph that lets you track the components and its usages. For instance, consider the snippet below:
Bit is able to understand that components that are being used across the tree. With this, it offers its Ripple CI that is able to continuously integrate and upgrade changes up the component tree by determining its changes. By doing so, it provides a simplified and a more robust component delivery system while improving consistency and reliability.
Additionally, Bit takes this approach one step further by letting you distribute your components onto different repositories. For example, you could use Bit to manage your components and ship your changes to NPM Repositories through Ripple CI.
Strengths
- Component-Based Development: Bit introduces a component-based approach, promoting seamless integration and code reusability.
- Automatic Versioning and Dependency Management: Bit automates versioning and dependency management, ensuring consistency.
- Versatility: Bit supports various build tasks and environments, making it adaptable to different development scenarios.
Weaknesses
- Shift in Development Mindset: Adopting Bit requires a change in the development mindset, which might pose challenges for some teams.
- Limited Awareness: Bit might have little awareness in the developer community compared to more established tools.
Best Useful For
- Building component libraries.
- Collaborative development across teams.
4. Turborepo
Turborepo positions itself as a high-performance build system for JavaScript and TypeScript codebases. It leverages advanced techniques from Facebook and Google, focusing on incremental builds, content-aware hashing, and parallel execution.
Strengths
- Incremental Builds: Turborepo focuses on incremental builds, reducing development cycle times by skipping unnecessary computations.
- Content-Aware Hashing: Efficient handling of dependencies through content-aware hashing ensures reliable and speedy figures.
- Scalability: Turborepo is designed to scale, providing optimal performance for large codebases.
Weaknesses
- Limited Awareness and Adoption: Turborepo may not be as widely recognized and adopted as more mature build systems.
- Feature Richness: Turborepo might lack some advanced features compared to more established tools.
Best Useful For:
- Scaling codebases without compromising build performance.
- Teams seeking a performant alternative to mainstream build systems.
5. Bazel
Bazel stands out for its multilingual support, allowing developers to build and test projects written in diverse languages. Originating from Google, Bazel focuses on correctness, reproducibility, and scalability, making it an ideal choice for large-scale, mission-critical projects.
Strengths
- Correctness and Reproducibility: Bazel prioritizes build correctness and reproducibility, ensuring reliable results across different environments.
- Multilingual Support: With support for multiple languages, Bazel accommodates projects with diverse programming languages.
- Scalability: Bazel handles large-scale projects effectively, making it suitable for mission-critical applications.
Weaknesses
- Steep Learning Curve: Bazel’s learning curve can be challenging, especially for developers new to the tool.
- Overhead for Smaller Projects: Smaller projects might experience overhead when using Bazel.
Best Useful For
- Large-scale projects involving multiple programming languages.
- Organizations emphasizing correctness and scalability
Choosing the Right Build System
Selecting the right build system involves evaluating your project’s needs, team expertise, and scalability requirements.
As discussed earlier, each tool has its own set of strengths. However, Bit stands out from the rest and, in my opinion, is one of the best build systems to consider for 2024.
Why Bit as a Modern Build System?
- Descriptive Package Names: Modules and components in Bit are maintained using descriptive package names, eliminating the need for aliases and enhancing code clarity.
- Automatic Dependency Detection: Bit automates the detection of dependencies and smartly resolves them, streamlining the development process without requiring redundant package.json files.
- Reusable Development Environments: Bit offers reusable development environments encompassing all necessary tooling and configurations. This eliminates the need for numerous configuration files like tsconfig.json, ecliptic, or prettier, promoting consistency in development setups.
- Independent Component Builds: Components in Bit are built individually and independently. This approach ensures efficiency in the build process, with only modified components undergoing rebuilding. Parallel building of multiple sibling components further optimizes the overall build performance.
- Preview and Auto-Generated Docs: Every Bit component is an asset with auto-generated documentation and previews, enhancing collaboration and easing the understanding of component functionalities.
- Component Generators: Bit facilitates the creation of new components using pre-built templates through component generators. This accelerates development and maintains uniformity in development standards.
- Development Strategy Flexibility: Bit acts as a versatile development strategy enabler, offering the flexibility to be used as a standalone or alongside other mono repo solutions. It can also function as a polyrepo solution or, intriguingly, as part of an entirely distributed codebase, where components’ remote hosting serves as the sole source of truth.
- Use of Modern Frontend CI: Bit leverages its Ripple CI to deploy changes to components automatically through the component tree. This lets teams gain a more hands-off approach on operations, thus letting them add more business value.
Final Thoughts
Understanding each build system’s nuanced strengths and weaknesses is crucial for making an informed decision based on your project’s specific needs and scale.
While each tool brings something valuable, Bit’s emphasis on component-centric development and adaptability positions it as a unifying force for modern development workflows in 2024.
I hope you found this article helpful.
Thank you for reading.
