Features
- Rollup-compatible API rewritten in Rust for speed
- Designed to unify Vite's dev and prod bundling
- Native tree shaking and code splitting
- Plugin compatibility with existing Rollup plugins
Pros
- Dramatically faster than JavaScript-based Rollup
- Will eliminate dev/prod behavior differences in Vite
- Backed by the Vite team with clear roadmap
Cons
- Still in active development, not yet production-ready
- API surface may change before 1.0 release
- Plugin compatibility is not yet 100%
Overview
Rolldown is a Rust-based JavaScript bundler designed as a drop-in replacement for Rollup. It is being built by the Vite team with the explicit goal of becoming the unified bundler for both development and production builds in Vite, eliminating the current split between esbuild (dev) and Rollup (prod).
By reimplementing Rollup’s API and plugin interface in Rust, Rolldown aims to deliver the same output quality and plugin compatibility that made Rollup popular, but with the performance characteristics of native-code tools like esbuild. This means faster builds without sacrificing the tree shaking and code splitting quality Rollup is known for.
Rolldown uses OXC under the hood for parsing and transformation, making it part of the emerging Rust-based JavaScript toolchain ecosystem.
When to Use
Rolldown is currently in development. Watch for its integration into Vite as the project matures. When stable, it will be the recommended bundler for Vite-based projects, replacing both esbuild and Rollup in the pipeline.
Getting Started
# Rolldown is in active development
npm install rolldown
npx rolldown src/index.ts --outDir dist