Software Alternatives, Accelerators & Startups

Gradle VS Yarn

Compare Gradle VS Yarn and see what are their differences

Gradle logo Gradle

Accelerate developer productivity. Gradle helps teams build, automate and deliver better software, faster. DocsExplore the documentation of Gradle. Find installation ..

Yarn logo Yarn

Yarn is a package manager for your code.
  • Gradle Landing page
    Landing page //
    2023-05-11
  • Yarn Landing page
    Landing page //
    2023-10-03

Gradle features and specs

  • Performance
    Gradle is known for its high performance, including build caching and incremental builds. It optimizes tasks to avoid unnecessary work and speeds up the development process.
  • Flexibility
    Gradle provides a highly flexible and customizable build automation system. It supports Java, Kotlin, Groovy, Scala, and more.
  • Dependency Management
    Gradle offers robust dependency management, allowing easy handling of complex dependencies and transitive dependencies. It integrates well with repositories like Maven Central and JCenter.
  • Multi-project Builds
    Gradle excels at handling multi-project builds. It supports both monorepo and multi-repo project structures, enabling scalable build configurations.
  • Integration
    Gradle integrates smoothly with popular IDEs like IntelliJ IDEA, Eclipse, and Android Studio, improving the developer experience and productivity.
  • Declarative Builds
    Gradle uses a domain-specific language (DSL) which makes it easier to declare build configurations in a readable format. It supports both Groovy and Kotlin DSLs.

Possible disadvantages of Gradle

  • Complexity
    Gradleโ€™s flexibility can introduce complexity. New users might find it challenging to grasp Gradleโ€™s concepts and DSL, especially for sophisticated build configurations.
  • Configuration Time
    Initial configuration and setup of Gradle can be time-consuming. Fine-tuning the build scripts to optimize performance may also require significant effort.
  • Documentation
    While Gradleโ€™s documentation is comprehensive, it can sometimes be overwhelming. Users might need to rely on community resources or tutorials for certain advanced configurations.
  • Compatibility Issues
    Gradle changes and updates can sometimes introduce compatibility issues with plugins or existing build scripts, requiring adjustments when upgrading.
  • Resource Intensive
    Gradle can be resource-intensive, potentially consuming significant memory and CPU resources, particularly for very large projects.

Yarn features and specs

  • Speed
    Yarn uses an efficient caching mechanism and parallel installation to improve package installation times, making it faster than many other package managers.
  • Reliability
    With its deterministic dependency resolution, Yarn ensures that a project will work on all systems exactly the same way, preventing the 'works on my machine' problem.
  • Security
    Yarn uses checksums to verify the integrity of every installed package before execution, ensuring higher security standards.
  • Offline Mode
    Yarn has an offline mode capability which allows developers to install dependencies offline if they've been installed remotely at least once before.
  • Workspaces
    Yarn Workspaces allow developers to manage multiple packages within a project, facilitating efficient mono-repo management.

Possible disadvantages of Yarn

  • Complexity
    Yarn introduces additional commands and configurations which may pose a learning curve for developers who are used to npm.
  • Disk Usage
    Yarn's offline cache can consume more disk space compared to npm, which could be an issue for projects with very large dependencies.
  • Compatibility
    Some older Node.js projects and dependencies may have compatibility issues with Yarn, requiring adjustments or the use of npm.
  • Network Incompatibility
    Yarn's fetching mechanism sometimes doesn't work properly behind certain corporate proxies or firewalls, leading to network issues.
  • Smaller Community
    Compared to npm, Yarn has a smaller user base, which can result in fewer community resources, tutorials, and third-party tools.

Analysis of Yarn

Overall verdict

  • Yes, Yarn is considered a good choice for developers managing dependencies in JavaScript projects due to its speed, stability, and flexible workflow.

Why this product is good

  • Yarn is a popular package manager for JavaScript that offers faster performance and reliability compared to other options like npm. It offers features like deterministic locking, offline mode, and enhanced security with checksums to verify package integrity.

Recommended for

  • Developers looking for a faster alternative to npm
  • Projects that require deterministic package management
  • Teams that prioritize security and integrity of dependencies
  • Developers needing an efficient build system for complex projects

Gradle videos

Gradle project properties best practices (don't be that guy)

More videos:

  • Review - Gradle Demystified - Josh Allen
  • Review - Working With Gradle in IntelliJ IDEA

Yarn videos

Yarn Snob Reviews New Lion Brand Yarns [A Few Big Hits and Bigger Misses]

More videos:

  • Review - Yarn Review - Lionbrand Vs Caron | Which Do You Choose | Bag-O-Day Crochet Video
  • Review - My First Shipment from Ice Yarns - Comparison & Review | Yay For Yarn

Category Popularity

0-100% (relative to Gradle and Yarn)
DevOps Tools
100 100%
0% 0
Front End Package Manager
Continuous Integration
100 100%
0% 0
Developer Tools
0 0%
100% 100

User comments

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Social recommendations and mentions

Based on our record, Yarn should be more popular than Gradle. It has been mentiond 118 times since March 2021. We are tracking product recommendations and mentions on various public social media platforms and blogs. They can help you identify which product is more popular and what people think of it.

Gradle mentions (42)

  • Top 5 Essential Build Tools for Modern Development
    Emerging as a strong contender and often seen as a modern alternative to Maven, Gradle offers unparalleled flexibility and performance. While also deeply rooted in the Java ecosystem, Gradle's versatility extends to various languages and platforms, including Android, C++, and more, making it a favorite for diverse development environments. - Source: dev.to / 3 months ago
  • Android Studio Ladybug broke my build.
    First off, Gradle is the build system selected by the Android team at Google as the official tool for generating Android APKs, Bundles, or libraries. Gradle exists outside Android and can be used with other technologies. - Source: dev.to / 11 months ago
  • Tutorial: Build a Java SDK based on OpenAPI Spec
    Gradle: Gradle offers more flexibility and faster build times, especially for larger Projects. It can be useful if your SDK requires more advanced build customizations or if you prioritize build performance. - Source: dev.to / about 1 year ago
  • My Journey with AWS CDK and Java: What You Need to Know
    From what Iโ€™ve seen, adopting the CDK in Java is relatively easy for most of these teams as they already understand the language and the ecosystem. Integrating the CDK with their existing build tools like Maven and Gradle is well documented, which leaves them with the learning curve of understanding how to work with infrastructure as code, how to structure a CDK project and when to use L1, L2 and L3 constructs. - Source: dev.to / about 1 year ago
  • Rapyd API Request Signatures in Java
    To begin, create a new Java project with the Gradle build option using IntelliJ IDE. Gradle is a build automation tool that supports compiling, testing, packing, and deploying applications, and it also helps seamlessly manage dependencies. - Source: dev.to / over 1 year ago
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Yarn mentions (118)

  • Top 5 Essential Build Tools for Modern Development
    Introduced by Facebook (now Meta) to address some of the performance and security concerns with early npm versions, Yarn quickly gained traction as a fast, reliable, and secure alternative for JavaScript package management. While npm has significantly improved since Yarn's inception, Yarn continues to be a popular choice, especially in large-scale projects and monorepos. - Source: dev.to / 3 months ago
  • Flash-install
    Inspired by the speed of Bun, the reliability of Yarn, and the efficiency of PNPM. - Source: dev.to / 5 months ago
  • Wow, pnpm, Youโ€™re Really Fast
    If youโ€™re a Node.js developer, then youโ€™re familiar with npm and Yarn. You might even have a strong opinion about using one over the other. For years, developers have been struggling with the bloatโ€Šโ€”โ€Šin disk storage and build timeโ€Šโ€”โ€Šwhen working with Node.js package managers, especially npm. - Source: dev.to / 11 months ago
  • Dockerizing a Next.js Application using a Standalone Build
    In my case, I like to use pnpm to reduce the disk size of the node_modules folder. Therefore, the example of the Next.js Docker image uses this package manager, but you can make slight adjustments to use npm or yarn if you prefer. - Source: dev.to / 12 months ago
  • Webpack Performance Tuning: Minimizing Build Times for Large Projects
    Now that we've discussed optimizations to reduce Webpack build times, let's shift our focus to package installation times. Currently, we are using Yarn 1.22, where the installation process takes approximately 10 minutes. - Source: dev.to / about 1 year ago
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What are some alternatives?

When comparing Gradle and Yarn, you can also consider the following products

Apache Maven - Apache Maven is a project comprehension and management software tool.

Node.js - Node.js is a platform built on Chrome's JavaScript runtime for easily building fast, scalable network applications

GNU Make - GNU Make is a tool which controls the generation of executables and other non-source files of a program from the program's source files.

npm - npm is a package manager for Node.

CMake - CMake is an open-source, cross-platform family of tools designed to build, test and package software.

Webpack - Webpack is a module bundler. Its main purpose is to bundle JavaScript files for usage in a browser, yet it is also capable of transforming, bundling, or packaging just about any resource or asset.