browserify

Browserify has undergone a lot of iteration, only becoming stable in recent years. In terms of design there's very little it gets wrong. Probably the only critique is that its documentation doesn't lend itself well to beginners.

This guide is meant to give you a pragmatic introduction to Browserify. If you're looking for a more complete overview, check out browserify-handbook by James Halliday (Substack).

• what is browserify?
• how to use browserify
• transforms
• what is the difference with other bundlers?

What is Browserify?

Browserify lets you run CommonJS (Node) code in the browser. This reduces the drawback of switching contexts between browser and server, and allows sharing of modules between the two. Generally only native addons (C / C++ code) and fs won't work (though you can cheat).

Browserify follows the unix philosophy, and only does 1 thing: make your JavaScript code run in the browser just like it would in Node. By using tiny modules called "transforms", Browserify can be extended to do all sorts of stuff such as: static asset inlining, minification, dependency replacement, bundle splitting and more!

Browserify can be called from both the command line and Node.

shell

# bundle index.js into bundle.js
$ browserify index.js -o bundle.js

js

const browserify = require('browserify')
const fs = require('fs')

// bundle index.js into bundle.js
browserify('index.js')
  .bundle()
  .pipe(fs.createWriteStream('bundle.js')

About 90% of the time you'll be using the CLI, so don't worry too much about learning the Node API.

How to use browserify

As noted above, you generally don't want to use the Node Browserify API unless you're building higher level tools on top of it. Don't let yourself be fooled by all the folks running Browserify from within Grunt of Gulp: they're overcomplicating things.

Instead of using an opinionated task runner, it's common to use npm scripts to automate tasks:

browserify

{
  "start": "npm run watch",
  "build": "browserify browser.js -o bundle.js",
  "watch": "watchify browser.js -o bundle.js --debug --verbose",
}

This setup is nice to get started with Browserify.

• npm start: run npm run watch
• npm run build: create JS bundle
• npm run watch: run watchify in debug + verbose mode

browserify + cssnext

{
  "start": "npm run watch",
  "watch": "(npm run watch:ify & npm run watch:css & serve . -SJ)",
  "watch:ify": "watchify index.js -o bundle.js --debug --verbose",
  "watch:css": "cssnext --watch index.css bundle.css",
}

Browserify has well defined boundaries, and as such isn't concerned with CSS. Here is an example of how to setup, serve and watch JS, HTML and CSS files using Browserify, cssnext and serve.

• npm start: run npm run watch
• npm run watch: run npm run watch:ify, npm run watch:css and serve files
• npm run watch:ify: run watchify in debug + verbose mode
• npm run watch:css: run cssnext in watch mode

Transforms

We've been mentioned before that transforms are Browserify's way of extending Browserify's capabilities. There are 3 ways of using transforms: from the CLI, package.json and JS API. The most convenient way is by including them in package.json:

{
  "name": "mypkg",
  "version": "1.2.3",
  "main": "main.js",
  "browserify": {
    "transform": [ "brfs" ]
  }
}

Now brfs will be called on all code that's part of mypkg. By including it in package.json, the transform will be run on mypkg when mypkg is required by a parent package that is being bundled with Browserify.

Some useful transforms are:

• brfs - Browserify fs.readFileSync() static asset inliner
• babelify - turn ES201{5,6,7} code into ES5
• envify - Selectively replace Node-style environment variables with plain strings
• uglifyify - A Browserify transform which minifies your code using UglifyJS2

Browserify plugins have full access to the bundle and can do more advanced things:

• errorify - write failed build error messages to the output file
• factor-bundle - factor browser-pack bundles into common shared bundles
• proxyquireify - mock modules for testing by overriding require

There are also a number of useful modules that integrate via a CLI or Unix piping:

• disc - Visualise the module tree of Browserify project bundles and track down bloat
• exorcist - Externalizes the source map found inside a stream to an external .js.map file

What's the difference with other bundlers?

Browserify is different from other bundlers because of its simplicity. Where other bundlers add more features over time, Browserify focuses on stability and interoperability with the Node API, leaving the experimentation to transforms.

Using Browserify comes with a set of guarantees:

• transparency: Browserify is mostly considered done. Any changes made strictly follow semver, and comprehensive release notes are released with every patch.
• portability: fs and native addons aside, Browserify gives full interoperability between the browser and Node. For example: Browserify won't overload require() and change its semantics just to inline assets. Instead it uses a transform that will work with any module loader.
• ecosystem: a vibrant ecosystem of transforms created that add just about any feature imaginable. There are transforms available for minification, asset inlining, bundle splitting, compiling templates and more.
• extensibility: higher level tools can consume Browserify as a dependency. For example: budo is a command line application server that bundles JS, CSS and HTML into an application, allowing devs to spend their time working on a demo, rather than the build infrastructure.
• readability: Browserify's source is small, thoroughly tested and relies on external modules to break down complexity. If you're curious how a feature works it's easy to dive in and poke around.
• shareability: Browserify works great for teams. Contrary to other loaders it doesn't require lengthy configuration files to run tasks. When a new member joins a team, all they need to do is glance over the list of transforms to determine what the bundler is doing, greatly speeding up the onboarding process.

Though not every other bundler fails on all points, only Browserify ticks all boxes.

See Also

• browserify-handbook
• browserify