Webpack vs Vite：Comparing Front-end Build Tools' Pros, Cons, and Application Scenarios

• Webpack is a powerful and highly configurable module bundler.
• It treats JavaScript, CSS, images, etc., as modules and builds a dependency graph based on their relationships, finally bundling them into one or more bundle files.
• Webpack supports various loaders and plugins to extend the functionality of modules, such as code splitting, hot module replacement, development server, and more:

Code Splitting: SplitChunksPlugin allows choosing which bundle files to split for better division and parallel loading. Hot Module Replacement: Enables replacing or removing modules during runtime without reloading the page.

Loader: Used to process non-JavaScript files like CSS, images, fonts, converting them into modules that Webpack can handle. Plugin: Used to extend Webpack’s functionality, such as HtmlWebpackPlugin for generating HTML files and MiniCssExtractPlugin for extracting CSS into separate files. Entry: The entry point where Webpack starts building (can be single or multiple modules). Output: The output configuration for Webpack’s build.

• A newer front-end build tool aimed at providing fast development experience and build performance.
• Leverages browsers’ native ES module support, combined with esbuild’s pre-bundling feature, to achieve fast cold start and hot module replacement.
• Offers out-of-the-box support for TypeScript, JSX, and CSS without complex configuration.
• Uses Rollup for bundling and minimizing output in production builds.

• Build speed: Vite outperforms Webpack due to its use of native ES modules.
• Learning cost: Vite is more beginner-friendly than Webpack, which provides rich configuration options but has a higher learning curve.
• Granularity of bundling settings: Webpack surpasses Vite with its extensive output settings, allowing developers to fine-tune the build process. Vite uses Rollup, which can also generate small bundles, but its simple configuration makes it less flexible than Webpack for production builds.
• Ecosystem maturity: Webpack has a more mature ecosystem compared to Vite, which is a newer tool with a rapidly growing development ecosystem.
• Vite itself is a development server, while Webpack has development server settings but is not a development server per se.