Complete Intro to React v4 Webpack vs Parcel

[00:00:00]
>> Brian Holt: So let's go ahead and go do Parcel really quick. So let's go back to our package.json. Previous versions of this course used Webpack. And Webpack is still, I'll be honest, what I use most of the time. When I'm building a big project that I'm gonna maintain for a really long time, I typically choose Webpack because there's a lot of ways you can tweak and configure it.

[00:00:28] That being said, because there are so many ways to configure Webpack, it can be a little unruly to manage. I don't think anyone's gonna deny that except a couple of the core team members of Webpack. In my opinion it can be quite difficult to configure. So there's another product that came along called Parcel.

[00:00:49] Parcel is quite similar to Webpack that it's a bundler for your application, but it's pretty much zero configuration. You just say, here's my index.html file. Please do everything else and it just handles it for you. It's really, really nice in that respect. So that is why I actually, I really like it for teaching.

[00:01:09] Because you and I don't have to spend a bunch of time setting up a build process, it just kind of happens. And to be honest with you there are some really, really smart people working on Parcel, it's just getting better everyday. So if you ask me which one I prefer, Webpack or Parcel, I really like both of them quite a bit.

[00:01:23] But like I wanna point out right now that you can definitely use Webpack, Webpack's not dead, nothing like that. They're both really great projects and they're both pushing each other to be even better projects. So I like both teams. I think they're both good projects. You should definitely look into both.

[00:01:38] And if you're interested in building React with Webpack, check out V3 of this course because it goes over Webpack quite in depth. And then there's, not only that Sean Larkin and one of the core maintainers of Webpack, actually comes in to Frontend Masters and does a really great Webpack course that shows you all the crazy stuff that you can do with Webpack.

[00:01:58]
>> Speaker 2: When would you choose one versus the other?
>> Brian Holt: Me, personally. If I wanna do something really quick and just like get up running right away there's nothing better than Parcel cuz it really is just like Parcel and then you're done, right? If I'm gonna build something that's large, and I'm gonna have crazy requirements and I need to configure a bunch of stuff, and maybe write my own plug ins and stuff like that, I'm gonna choose Webpack.

[00:02:29] Now, I really hesitate to say that because I'm not trying to imply that you can't scale Parcel. I think it does scale quite well as well. So, really it's your preference on how much configuration you want, I think that's the key there. Webpack it's a lot more mature, it's been around for longer.

[00:02:50] But like I said there is really smart people working on both of them, so it's preference. I'm probably overly oriented towards Webpack because I've been using it for so long. I have a little bit of survivorship bias that I have survived Webpack for long enough that I know how to use it.

[00:03:06] If you're getting started with Webpack, it can be difficult. Now they're doing stuff to remedy that, so I also don't wanna say that Webpack's super difficult. They've made it a lot easier since with V4 going forward, so.
>> Brian Holt: I hope I gave you a total non-answer, because that's what I was going for.

[00:03:25] [LAUGH] Cool, any other questions?
>> Speaker 2: That's good.
>> Brian Holt: It's tough, because I like both teams a lot and I don't wanna disparage either one of them.
>> Brian Holt: I know after this I'm gonna get Sean Larkin tweets saying like, what the hell are you doing? So, sorry Sean.