[dawkins]

I switched from google closure to esbuild and it is amazing how fast and well it works. It even generates smaller code in my use case (200k lines app). Also the creator is really nice. He implemented two features I requested right away, which surprised me a lot. What a great project!

[ratww]

I've seen other interactions in the issue tracker and the author has been nothing short of responsive and understanding. This is a project worth contributing money to.

[nitsky]

I submitted a couple PRs to esbuild and also found the author to be kind and helpful.

[ricklamers]

Similar experience here, extremely rapid turnaround time on my request for extended symlink support https://github.com/evanw/esbuild/issues/781

This project is a prototypical example of the power of open source. An incredible contribution to the JavaScript ecosystem.

[Zacru]

Out of curiosity, was that with closure's simple or advanced optimizations?

[dawkins]

Simple optimizations, Advanced always broke my code.

[alessivs]

Important distinctions when comparing Closure Compiler's performance to other tools:

1. Regarding bundle size: Optimization level used (SIMPLE optimizations yield output that is at least expected from a minifier these days)

2. Regarding compilation speed:

* Whether the JavaScript-only compiler was used over the JVM compiler: besides being slower, a number of optimizations are not available to the former.

* In many conditions a pre-heated JVM (or Nailgun), or using the NPM-distributed native compiler binary yields faster compilation.

* Which compiler flags have been tuned; e.g. such that the parsing of browser externs is bypassed during compilation for Node.js-targeted bundles.

Relevant discussion: https://github.com/evanw/esbuild/issues/425