Whether you’re a beginner or a professional javascript developer, chances are you may have encountered with these popular js package manager like npm, yarn, and pnpm.

As of now, you’ll find a list of node package managers, but these three are the most popular package managers in javascript world. These tools are used to handle dependencies of nodejs.

At the first glance, these all tools looks the same, but when it comes to managing dependencies in a javascript project, choosing the right package manager makes the difference.

With options like npm, yarn and the increasingly popular PNPM, developers wonder which one is best suites their needs node package manager

In this definitive guide, I’ll try to break down the stength, pros and cons and key features of these three major package managers, which hopefully helped choose right package manager for your next project.

1) NPM (The default Option)

npm (Node Package Manager) is the oldest and most widely used package manager for managing dependencies in nodejs application. npm comes pre-installed in nodejs which makes it the default option for managing dependencies.

From the security perspective, NPM has faced historical security challenges, including potential vulnerabilities from untrusted packages.

However, recent versions have introduced features like security audits (npm audit) to identify and fix vulnerabilities in your dependencies. Always review audit reports and update packages regularly.

Key Features:

1. With over 1.5 million packages, makes it the largest repository of open source libraries (npmjs.com).
2. npm is easy to use, with simple and straight-forward commands makes it a perfect choice for beginners.
3. As it comes built-in with nodejs, meaning you don’t need to install it separately.

Weeknesses:

1. One of the major down fall of npm is performance issues, makes slow installation of dependencies.
2. Earlier versions has global dependencies issues which lead of conflicts.

2) Yarn (Speedy & Reliable)

Yarn was developed by facebook in 2016 as an alternative of npm to solve some performance and security issues in the early versions of npm. It manages dependencies faster and in more reliable way.

Yarn emphasizes security with features like lockfiles (yarn.lock) to ensure consistent installations and prevent dependency hijacking. Yarn also performs integrity checks on downloaded packages to verify their authenticity.

Key Features:

1. Yarn uses parallel processing, which makes installation faster.
2. Yarn introduces a more reliable way of managing package-lock.json file, by ensuring consistent installation across different devices.
3. It also make it possible to manage monorepos by providing built-in support for larger projects.

Weeknesses:

1. In term of learning curves & syntex, yarn is little complex then npm.
2. Yarn mostly use npm packages, but their are some packages that are incompatible, that requires adjustments by developers in their workflow.
3. Yarn creates more files making node_module folder slightly larger then npm, which affect disk space.

3) Pnpm (Space Saver & high performant)

Pnpm stands for “Performant npm” is a another new candidate in package manager list of javascript. pnpm is consistantly taking developers attentions, and is growing faster. It solves some most annoying issues that we face in npm and yarn.

Pnpm uses Symlink system which drastically reduces disk space and speed up installations.

PNPM's unique approach of using a content-addressable file system offers enhanced security. By storing packages in a central location and symlinking them, PNPM reduces the risk of malicious packages injecting code into multiple projects. Also, PNPM's strictness helps avoid phantom dependencies

Key Features:

1. PNPM stores only one copy of each package, creating symlinks (shortcuts) for other projects that need it. This results in a more efficient use of disk space.
2. Like Yarn, PNPM also uses parallelization to speed up installations, but its symlink approach makes it even faster.
3. PNPM also supports monorepos, making it a strong competitor to Yarn in this area.

Weeknesses:

1. While pnpm aims to fully compatible with npm, but still certain cases can cause issues particularly with less common modules.
2. PNPM’s different way of managing dependencies might require some time to get used to.
3. Though growing fast, PNPM is still relatively new, so community support and resources might not be as abundant.

Which one to choose?

So, how do we choose the right package manager between npm, yarn and pnpm? Here is a quick breakdown:

1. npm: npm as a default option with simplicity, works greate on smaller projects. With the continues development on this project, npm has improved alot.
2. yarn: Perfect choice, if you want faster installation, security and wants to manage larger projects or mono-repos.
3. pnpm: if you want an efficient package manager in term of speed and disk space. If you’re working on large projects with many dependencies, PNPM’s symlink strategy will be a game-changer.

I hope this article clear the difference between 3 major package managing tools and help you choose the right tool for the right project. Their is no single tool that completely meets your all projects need. It dependes upon by projects requirements.

Thanks for reading at the end, you can always share your perspective in the comment box.

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