Software Alternatives, Accelerators & Startups

UglifyJS VS Prepack

Compare UglifyJS VS Prepack and see what are their differences

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UglifyJS logo UglifyJS

JavaScript minifier, beautifier, mangler and parser toolkit.

Prepack logo Prepack

Prepack is a partial evaluator for JavaScript.
  • UglifyJS Landing page
    Landing page //
    2022-10-30
  • Prepack Landing page
    Landing page //
    2019-09-02

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.

Prepack features and specs

  • Performance Optimization
    Prepack optimizes JavaScript code by evaluating and executing pure computations at compile time, reducing runtime computation and improving performance.
  • Size Reduction
    By performing partial evaluation, Prepack can eliminate dead code and constants, leading to smaller bundle sizes and potentially faster load times.
  • Improved Initialization
    Prepack can precompute portions of code, allowing applications to start faster by requiring less initialization time at runtime.
  • Code Inlining
    Prepack efficiently inlines certain functions and computations, reducing the indirection and increasing execution speed.

Possible disadvantages of Prepack

  • Complex Setup
    Integrating Prepack into a build process can be complex, requiring careful configuration and testing to ensure the correct behavior of the optimized code.
  • Limited Use Cases
    Prepack works best with statically analyzable code and may not benefit dynamic codebases as much, restricting its applicability.
  • Potential Bugs
    There could be corner cases where Prepack's optimizations lead to unexpected behaviors or bugs, especially in complex applications.
  • Maintenance and Support
    As of the latest updates, Prepack's development activity has slowed, which might be a concern for long-term support and maintenance.

UglifyJS videos

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Prepack videos

Prepack : Clif Bar Review! ALL FLAVORS in ONE VIDEO!*

More videos:

  • Review - sativa prepack shake review

Category Popularity

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Code Analysis
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Tool
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Code Review
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User comments

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Social recommendations and mentions

Based on our record, Prepack should be more popular than UglifyJS. It has been mentiond 4 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.

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

Prepack mentions (4)

  • LLRT: A low-latency JavaScript runtime from AWS
    If I understand it correctly, it exchanges execution speed (by not using JIT) for faster starts. Instead, they could pick up the old FB project https://prepack.io/ to optimize both start AND execution speed. It would be very interesting to see it together with node's snapshots: https://blog.logrocket.com/snapshot-flags-node-js-v18-8/, which reduces the start significantly. - Source: Hacker News / over 1 year ago
  • [AskJS] Are there any surviving alternatives to prepack?
    For those uninitiated, Prepack was a neat JavaScript code optimizer. It eliminated computations that could be done at compile time. https://prepack.io/ The project has been dead for quite a while, but it has valid use cases to this day. Source: about 2 years ago
  • Understanding the Performance Impact of Generated JavaScript
    Surely this is the job for something like https://prepack.io/. Source: almost 3 years ago
  • Memoirs of a lone JavaScript developer PART 2 : Svelte. An awful implementation of an old idea.
    Some real examples in JavaScript can be seen on Prepack[2]. Consequently it is natural to wonder whether we can AOT compile components of client side frameworks, to achieve a reduction in the final bundle size, but also to increase application execution speed. Source: over 3 years ago

What are some alternatives?

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

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

CodeRush - DevExpress CodeRush for Roslyn uses significantly less memory, works faster, and lets you start Visual Studio faster.

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

ReSharper - ReSharper is a productivity tool for visual studio that provides tools and features to help you manage your code.

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

Productivity Power Tools - Extension for Visual Studio - A set of extensions to Visual Studio 2012 Professional (and above) which improves developer productivity.