Rolldown is an innovative JavaScript/TypeScript bundler written in Rust, designed to revolutionize the development workflow in Vite and beyond.
It combines the flexibility of Rollup with the performance of esbuild, aiming to unify and optimize the bundling process for modern web applications.
Key Features And Functionality
- Performance:
- Rolldown is built in Rust, offering speeds comparable to esbuild and significantly faster than Rollup (10–30 times faster). Its WASM build also outperforms esbuild’s WASM compilation due to Rust’s efficiency.
- Compatibility:
- It supports Rollup-compatible APIs and plugin interfaces, ensuring seamless integration with existing Vite ecosystems. This allows developers to transition smoothly from Rollup or esbuild to Rolldown.
- Advanced Features:
- Rolldown introduces features like advanced chunk splitting, TypeScript/JSX syntax lowering, Node.js-compatible module resolution, and experimental CSS bundling.
- These capabilities make it a versatile tool for both small-scale and large-scale projects.
- Ecosystem Integration:
- Designed as the future bundler for Vite, Rolldown aims to replace both Rollup and esbuild in Vite’s architecture. This consolidation reduces inconsistencies between development and production builds while enhancing performance.
- Experimental Enhancements:
- Features like HMR (Hot Module Replacement) support, module federation, and experimental module types offer developers greater control over their build processes.
Why Rolldown?
Rolldown addresses the limitations of using multiple bundlers (Rollup for production builds and esbuild for dependency pre-bundling) by providing a unified solution.
It eliminates redundant parsing and serialization steps, reducing overhead while maintaining compatibility with Rollup’s plugin ecosystem.
Currently in active development, Rolldown is not yet ready for production use but is rapidly evolving. Developers are encouraged to contribute to its growth by following the contributing guide provided on its official website.
Rolldown represents a significant leap forward in JavaScript bundling technology. By combining speed, compatibility, and advanced features, it is poised to become a cornerstone of modern web development workflows. For more information, visit rolldown.rs.
