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JavaScript Obfuscator VS UglifyJS

Compare JavaScript Obfuscator VS UglifyJS and see what are their differences

JavaScript Obfuscator logo JavaScript Obfuscator

JavaScript Obfuscator is a free online tool that obfuscates your source code, preventing it from being stolen and used without permission.

UglifyJS logo UglifyJS

JavaScript minifier, beautifier, mangler and parser toolkit.
  • JavaScript Obfuscator Landing page
    Landing page //
    2023-09-23
  • UglifyJS Landing page
    Landing page //
    2022-10-30

JavaScript Obfuscator features and specs

  • Increased Code Security
    JavaScript obfuscation makes the code difficult to understand, providing an additional layer of security against code theft and unauthorized use.
  • Protection from Reverse Engineering
    By transforming the code into an unreadable format, obfuscation helps shield your code logic from competitors seeking to replicate your functionality.
  • Deterrence against Hackers
    Obfuscated code acts as a deterrent to hackers by making it time-consuming and resource-intensive to attempt to decipher the software’s mechanics.
  • Preservation of Functionality
    Despite altering the code appearance, obfuscation ensures that the original behavior and functionality of the JavaScript code remain unchanged.
  • Customization Options
    The obfuscator provides multiple options and settings for customizing the level and style of obfuscation, allowing you to balance between security and performance.

Possible disadvantages of JavaScript Obfuscator

  • Performance Overhead
    Obfuscated code can be less performant since the transformations applied can increase the size and decrease the readability of the code, impacting loading times.
  • Debugging Challenges
    Diagnosing and fixing issues in obfuscated code can be challenging due to the lack of meaningful variable names and structural clarity.
  • Not Foolproof
    While obfuscation increases the difficulty of reverse engineering, it is not an impenetrable solution, and determined attackers can still potentially decode the logic.
  • Potential Compatibility Issues
    Obfuscation might introduce compatibility problems with certain environments or tools, particularly if aggressive transformations are applied.
  • Increased Build Complexity
    Integrating obfuscation into the development and deployment pipeline adds complexity, requiring additional steps and potential modifications to the build process.

UglifyJS features and specs

  • Minification
    UglifyJS effectively reduces the file size of JavaScript by removing whitespace, shortening variable names, and eliminating unnecessary code, which can lead to faster load times in web applications.
  • Maturity and Stability
    As a mature and well-established tool, UglifyJS has a long history of usage and a strong community, making it a reliable choice for JavaScript minification with less risk of encountering severe bugs.
  • Customization
    UglifyJS offers various options and configurations that allow developers to control the minification process, such as toggling specific optimizations and preserving certain comments.
  • Compression
    Besides minification, UglifyJS provides compression options which further optimize the JavaScript code by evaluating constant expressions and removing unreachable code.

Possible disadvantages of UglifyJS

  • Source Mapping Complexity
    Generating source maps with UglifyJS can sometimes be complex and might not always accurately map minified code back to the original source, complicating debugging efforts.
  • Transformations Side Effects
    Some of the aggressive transformations made by UglifyJS could potentially introduce bugs if the original code relies on exact syntax structure or has side effects that depend on expression evaluation order.
  • Limited ES6+ Support
    Historically, UglifyJS has lagged in support for newer ECMAScript features compared to other modern minifiers, which might cause issues when dealing with ES6+ syntax without transpiling it first.
  • Error Diagnosis
    When errors occur during the minification process, UglifyJS may not always provide clear or detailed error messages, which can make it difficult to diagnose and fix issues.

Category Popularity

0-100% (relative to JavaScript Obfuscator and UglifyJS)
Web Application Bundler
62 62%
38% 38
Tool
51 51%
49% 49
Monitoring Tools
59 59%
41% 41
Assets Bundler
50 50%
50% 50

User comments

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Social recommendations and mentions

Based on our record, JavaScript Obfuscator seems to be a lot more popular than UglifyJS. While we know about 29 links to JavaScript Obfuscator, we've tracked only 1 mention of UglifyJS. 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.

JavaScript Obfuscator mentions (29)

  • Here's how to brew obfuscation in JavaScript without burning the lab: AST, Babel, plugins.
    Now let's take the above code and modify it with a popular obfuscator for JS - obfuscator.io. As a result, we will get a code like this:. - Source: dev.to / 4 months ago
  • How to Encrypt JavaScript Code for Web Security
    You can use tools like JavaScript Obfuscator or UglifyJS to obfuscate your code. - Source: dev.to / 6 months ago
  • What to do when someone clones your site?
    I know it's frowned upon here, but there are commercial and open source[1] javascript obfuscators with domain locking functionalities. If your site is already a SPA, they can make it very painful to just lift it (not impossible, obviously, because everything is reverse-engineerable, but the point is to discourage the majority of thiefs). You can be creative: for example, if whoever cloned your site is located in... - Source: Hacker News / 8 months ago
  • Need ideas with modding TCOAAL
    I don't need/use IDA, Nemlei just used https://obfuscator.io/, which just obfuscates the crap out of the code using various known methods (which I won't go into detail, it's public knowledge) and an un-obfuscation was cooked up by others. The one fucked-up thing the website does is randomizing function names, it just changes every variable/function name. We can't "un-obfuscate" those, so it's up to our brains to... Source: over 1 year ago
  • How do human read code like this
    It's to purposefully makes your code harder to read so it prevents people from stealing your work. Here's a tool that does it: https://obfuscator.io/. Source: about 2 years ago
View more

UglifyJS mentions (1)

  • Overview of the next-gen frontend dev tools
    There are many minifiers such as terser and uglify. But, because minifying also require to parse the JS, it is actually possible to use esbuild and SWC to minify the code. Here's a benchmark of the main minifiers. - Source: dev.to / over 2 years ago

What are some alternatives?

When comparing JavaScript Obfuscator and UglifyJS, you can also consider the following products

Terser - JavaScript parser, mangler, optimizer and beautifier toolkit for ES6+

Closure Compiler - The Closure Compiler is a tool for making JavaScript download and run faster.

YUI Compressor - Yahoo JS/CSS Compressor

DomainLockJS - Free code snippet to lock javascript files to your domain. Protect javascript code. Easy cut & paste script. Prevent unauthorized use of your scripts and deter code theft.

Gnirts - Gnirts is a JavaScript library for obfuscating string literals by encoding them as different string literals.

Jscrambler - Jscrambler is a JavaScript protection solution that makes apps self-defensive, resilient against tampering, malware injection, & code theft.