[andrew_]

Parcel started out with nearly the exact same message "don't get in the user's way." Unfortunately, that project like every other bundler, found that mission untenable the more the project and userbase grew. These projects invariably start with the intention of taking care of the author's use case (and there's nothing wrong with that) but neglect larger ecosystem needs. That results in these kinds of bundlers being niche (see: Fastpack).

It all boils down to the need for complex builds to handle complex assets, and having to deal with the CommonJS format hell scape. (~90% of issues posted for Webpack and Rollup concern CommonJS format and Node-flavored module resolution) Once those two ecosystem concerns begin to be met, bundlers start getting in the user's way, because they have to.

ESBuild has legs, and may avoid a lot of the pitfalls, but only time will tell - it's very promising. None of this is to dissuade the author, or any potential users, from trying this new bundler out. However, over the last 8 years or so I've seen these kinds of promises many times. This is a situation in which the big players (Rollup, Webpack, et al) are complex where they are, because they have to be.