Features
- 10-100x faster than traditional JavaScript bundlers
- Built-in support for TypeScript and JSX
- Tree shaking, minification, and source maps
- Flexible plugin API for custom transformations
Pros
- Blazing fast build speeds due to Go implementation
- Zero configuration needed for common use cases
- Small, focused tool with minimal dependencies
Cons
- Limited code splitting compared to Rollup or Webpack
- No HMR support built-in (designed as a bundler, not dev server)
- Plugin ecosystem is smaller than Webpack or Rollup
Overview
esbuild is a JavaScript bundler and minifier written in Go by Evan Wallace. It is famous for being orders of magnitude faster than existing JavaScript-based tools. When it launched, it demonstrated 10-100x speed improvements over Webpack, Rollup, and Parcel for common bundling tasks.
esbuild achieves its speed through parallelism, efficient memory usage, and being written in a compiled language. It handles TypeScript, JSX, tree shaking, and minification natively without requiring additional plugins or configuration.
Many higher-level tools use esbuild under the hood. Vite uses it for dependency pre-bundling, and numerous other build tools leverage it as a fast transpilation layer. It has fundamentally raised the bar for what developers expect in terms of build performance.
When to Use
Use esbuild when you need raw bundling speed for libraries, scripts, or backend code. It excels as a fast transpiler within larger toolchains. For full-featured frontend development with HMR, pair it with Vite or use it as a build step.
Getting Started
npm install --save-dev esbuild
npx esbuild src/index.ts --bundle --outfile=dist/out.js