Code Quality and Formatting Tools Comparison
eslint vs prettier vs stylelint vs sass-lint
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What's Code Quality and Formatting Tools?

Code quality and formatting tools are essential in modern web development to ensure that code adheres to specified standards, is free of errors, and is consistently formatted. These tools help maintain a clean codebase, facilitate collaboration among developers, and reduce the likelihood of bugs. By integrating these tools into the development workflow, teams can enforce coding standards, automate formatting, and improve overall code readability and maintainability.

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eslint41,936,04825,3473.37 MB997 days agoMIT
prettier41,145,85049,6597.83 MB1,43016 days agoMIT
stylelint4,825,13511,0741.52 MB1505 days agoMIT
sass-lint82,1001,767-2746 years agoMIT
Feature Comparison: eslint vs prettier vs stylelint vs sass-lint

Language Support

  • eslint:

    ESLint is designed specifically for JavaScript and TypeScript, providing comprehensive linting capabilities for both languages. It supports ES6+ features and can be configured to enforce specific coding styles and best practices.

  • prettier:

    Prettier supports multiple languages, including JavaScript, TypeScript, HTML, CSS, JSON, and more. It focuses on formatting rather than linting, ensuring consistent code style across various file types.

  • stylelint:

    Stylelint is a powerful linter for CSS and its preprocessors, including Sass and Less. It supports a wide range of CSS features and methodologies, making it versatile for various styling approaches.

  • sass-lint:

    Sass-lint is specifically built for Sass, providing linting capabilities tailored to the Sass syntax and its unique features. It helps enforce best practices and coding standards in Sass files.

Customization

  • eslint:

    ESLint offers extensive customization options, allowing developers to create their own rules or extend existing ones through plugins. This flexibility enables teams to enforce specific coding standards that suit their project needs.

  • prettier:

    Prettier has limited customization options as it follows opinionated formatting rules. While you can configure some settings (like tab width and single vs. double quotes), its primary goal is to provide a consistent style without much debate.

  • stylelint:

    Stylelint is highly customizable, allowing developers to define their own rules and extend functionality with plugins. This makes it suitable for various CSS methodologies and team preferences.

  • sass-lint:

    Sass-lint allows for customization of rules specific to Sass, enabling developers to tailor the linting process to their project's style guidelines. You can enable or disable specific rules based on team preferences.

Integration

  • eslint:

    ESLint integrates seamlessly with most code editors and build tools, providing real-time feedback on code quality as you write. It can be easily integrated into CI/CD pipelines to enforce linting rules before code is merged.

  • prettier:

    Prettier can be integrated into various code editors and build systems, allowing for automatic formatting on save or during the build process. This ensures that code is consistently formatted without manual intervention.

  • stylelint:

    Stylelint integrates well with popular code editors and build tools, providing real-time linting feedback for CSS and preprocessors. It can also be incorporated into CI/CD workflows to enforce style rules.

  • sass-lint:

    Sass-lint can be integrated into build processes and CI/CD pipelines, ensuring that Sass code adheres to defined linting rules before deployment. It can also be set up in code editors for real-time feedback.

Community and Ecosystem

  • eslint:

    ESLint has a large and active community, providing a wealth of plugins, configurations, and resources. This extensive ecosystem allows developers to find solutions and best practices easily.

  • prettier:

    Prettier has gained significant popularity and has a strong community backing. It is widely adopted in the industry, and many projects include it as part of their development workflow.

  • stylelint:

    Stylelint has a growing community and a rich ecosystem of plugins. It is well-supported and frequently updated, making it a reliable choice for CSS linting.

  • sass-lint:

    Sass-lint has a smaller community compared to ESLint and Prettier, but it is still valuable for teams focused on Sass. However, it may not have as many plugins or resources available.

Performance

  • eslint:

    ESLint is efficient in linting JavaScript and TypeScript code, but performance can vary based on the number of rules and plugins used. Proper configuration can help optimize its performance in larger codebases.

  • prettier:

    Prettier is designed for speed and efficiency, quickly formatting code without significant performance overhead. It is optimized for large codebases and can handle multiple files in a single run.

  • stylelint:

    Stylelint performs well with CSS and preprocessors, but like other linters, performance can be affected by the complexity of the stylesheets and the number of rules enforced.

  • sass-lint:

    Sass-lint performance is generally good, but it may slow down with a large number of rules or complex Sass files. It is essential to balance rule enforcement with performance considerations.

How to Choose: eslint vs prettier vs stylelint vs sass-lint
  • eslint:

    Choose ESLint if you are primarily focused on JavaScript or TypeScript linting. It provides extensive customization options and supports a wide range of plugins to enforce coding standards and catch potential errors early in the development process.

  • prettier:

    Choose Prettier if you want an opinionated code formatter that automatically formats your code according to a set of rules. It is especially useful for teams that want to maintain consistent code style without debating formatting preferences.

  • stylelint:

    Choose Stylelint if you are looking for a powerful and flexible linter for CSS and its preprocessors (like Sass and Less). It supports a wide range of rules and can be easily extended with plugins, making it suitable for various CSS methodologies.

  • sass-lint:

    Choose Sass-lint if you are working specifically with Sass stylesheets and need a tool to enforce style guidelines and catch errors in your Sass code. It is tailored for Sass and provides rules specific to its syntax and best practices.

Similar Npm Packages to eslint

eslint is a widely used linting utility for JavaScript and JSX code. It helps developers identify and fix problems in their code by enforcing a consistent coding style and catching potential errors before they become issues. ESLint is highly configurable, allowing developers to define their own rules or use predefined configurations to suit their project's needs. While ESLint is an excellent tool for maintaining code quality, there are other alternatives that serve similar purposes. Here are a few notable alternatives:

  • prettier is an opinionated code formatter that focuses on maintaining a consistent style across your codebase. Unlike ESLint, which primarily focuses on identifying and fixing code quality issues, Prettier automatically formats your code according to a set of rules. It can be used alongside ESLint to ensure both code quality and consistent formatting, making it a popular choice among developers who want to streamline their development workflow.
  • stylelint is a modern linter specifically designed for CSS and other style-related files. It helps developers maintain consistent styles and catch errors in their stylesheets. If your project involves a significant amount of CSS or preprocessors like SCSS or LESS, using Stylelint in conjunction with ESLint can help ensure that both your JavaScript and styles are well-structured and error-free.
  • tslint was a linter specifically designed for TypeScript code. However, it has been deprecated in favor of ESLint, which now supports TypeScript through the use of plugins. If you are working on a TypeScript project, you can leverage ESLint's capabilities to lint your TypeScript code effectively, making TSLint less relevant in modern development.

For a comprehensive comparison of these packages, visit: Comparing eslint vs prettier vs stylelint vs tslint.

Similar Npm Packages to prettier

prettier is an opinionated code formatter that helps developers maintain consistent code style across their projects. It automatically formats code according to predefined rules, making it easier to read and reducing the likelihood of style-related issues. While prettier is widely used for code formatting, there are several alternatives that also serve similar purposes. Here are a few notable ones:

  • eslint is primarily a linting tool for JavaScript and JSX code, but it also offers formatting capabilities. With a wide range of rules and plugins, ESLint helps developers identify and fix problems in their code, ensuring adherence to coding standards. While ESLint focuses on code quality and potential errors, it can be configured to format code as well, making it a versatile tool for maintaining code style and quality.
  • js-beautify is a simple and flexible JavaScript code beautifier that can format HTML, CSS, and JavaScript code. It allows developers to customize formatting options according to their preferences. While js-beautify is a straightforward tool for beautifying code, it may not offer the same level of integration and automation as prettier, making it more suitable for quick formatting tasks rather than comprehensive code style enforcement.
  • standard is a JavaScript style guide, linter, and formatter that enforces a specific coding style without the need for configuration. It promotes a set of rules that developers can follow to ensure consistency across their codebases. Standard is particularly appealing for teams that want to adopt a uniform coding style without spending time on configuration, but it may not offer the same flexibility as prettier in terms of customization.

To see how prettier compares with eslint, js-beautify, and standard, check out the comparison: Comparing eslint vs js-beautify vs prettier vs standard.

Similar Npm Packages to stylelint

stylelint is a powerful, modern linter for CSS and its preprocessors, such as SCSS and Less. It helps developers maintain consistent coding styles and catch errors in their stylesheets before they become problematic. By enforcing coding standards and best practices, stylelint improves the quality of CSS code, making it easier to read and maintain. While stylelint is a robust tool for CSS linting, there are other alternatives in the ecosystem that serve different purposes. Here are a few notable alternatives:

  • eslint is a widely-used linter for JavaScript and JSX code. It helps developers identify and fix problems in their JavaScript code by enforcing coding standards and best practices. While eslint is primarily focused on JavaScript, it can be extended to lint other file types, including styles written in CSS-in-JS libraries. If you're looking for a comprehensive solution for linting both JavaScript and CSS-in-JS styles, eslint is a great choice.
  • prettier is an opinionated code formatter that supports multiple languages, including JavaScript, CSS, and HTML. Unlike traditional linters, which focus on identifying potential issues in the code, prettier automatically formats code according to a set of rules. This ensures a consistent code style across your project without requiring manual adjustments. While prettier doesn't replace stylelint, it can be used alongside it to ensure both linting and formatting of CSS and other code types.
  • sass-lint is a linter specifically designed for Sass (Syntactically Awesome Style Sheets). It helps enforce coding standards and best practices in Sass files, similar to what stylelint does for CSS. If your project primarily uses Sass and you want a linter tailored specifically for that preprocessor, sass-lint is a suitable alternative.

To see how stylelint compares with eslint, prettier, and sass-lint, check out the comparison: Comparing eslint vs prettier vs sass-lint vs stylelint.

Similar Npm Packages to sass-lint

sass-lint is a powerful linting tool specifically designed for Sass (Syntactically Awesome Style Sheets) files. It helps developers maintain consistent coding styles and catch potential errors in their Sass code before it reaches production. By enforcing best practices and coding standards, sass-lint can improve the overall quality and maintainability of stylesheets in a project. It provides a range of configurable rules that can be tailored to fit the needs of different projects, making it a versatile choice for teams working with Sass.

One notable alternative to sass-lint is stylelint. While sass-lint is focused specifically on Sass, stylelint is a more general-purpose linter for CSS and its preprocessors, including Sass. It offers a comprehensive set of rules and plugins that can be customized to enforce coding standards across various stylesheets. stylelint is widely adopted in the web development community and is known for its flexibility and extensibility. If you are looking for a linter that can handle multiple CSS preprocessors and provide robust linting capabilities, stylelint is an excellent choice.

For a detailed comparison of these two packages, visit: Comparing sass-lint vs stylelint.

README for eslint

npm version Downloads Build Status FOSSA Status
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ESLint

Website | Configure ESLint | Rules | Contribute to ESLint | Report Bugs | Code of Conduct | Twitter | Discord | Mastodon

ESLint is a tool for identifying and reporting on patterns found in ECMAScript/JavaScript code. In many ways, it is similar to JSLint and JSHint with a few exceptions:

  • ESLint uses Espree for JavaScript parsing.
  • ESLint uses an AST to evaluate patterns in code.
  • ESLint is completely pluggable, every single rule is a plugin and you can add more at runtime.

Table of Contents

  1. Installation and Usage
  2. Configuration
  3. Version Support
  4. Code of Conduct
  5. Filing Issues
  6. Frequently Asked Questions
  7. Releases
  8. Security Policy
  9. Semantic Versioning Policy
  10. Stylistic Rule Updates
  11. License
  12. Team
  13. Sponsors
  14. Technology Sponsors

Installation and Usage

Prerequisites: Node.js (^18.18.0, ^20.9.0, or >=21.1.0) built with SSL support. (If you are using an official Node.js distribution, SSL is always built in.)

You can install and configure ESLint using this command:

npm init @eslint/config@latest

After that, you can run ESLint on any file or directory like this:

npx eslint yourfile.js

Configuration

You can configure rules in your eslint.config.js files as in this example:

export default [
    {
        files: ["**/*.js", "**/*.cjs", "**/*.mjs"],
        rules: {
            "prefer-const": "warn",
            "no-constant-binary-expression": "error"
        }
    }
];

The names "prefer-const" and "no-constant-binary-expression" are the names of rules in ESLint. The first value is the error level of the rule and can be one of these values:

  • "off" or 0 - turn the rule off
  • "warn" or 1 - turn the rule on as a warning (doesn't affect exit code)
  • "error" or 2 - turn the rule on as an error (exit code will be 1)

The three error levels allow you fine-grained control over how ESLint applies rules (for more configuration options and details, see the configuration docs).

Version Support

The ESLint team provides ongoing support for the current version and six months of limited support for the previous version. Limited support includes critical bug fixes, security issues, and compatibility issues only.

ESLint offers commercial support for both current and previous versions through our partners, Tidelift and HeroDevs.

See Version Support for more details.

Code of Conduct

ESLint adheres to the OpenJS Foundation Code of Conduct.

Filing Issues

Before filing an issue, please be sure to read the guidelines for what you're reporting:

Frequently Asked Questions

Does ESLint support JSX?

Yes, ESLint natively supports parsing JSX syntax (this must be enabled in configuration). Please note that supporting JSX syntax is not the same as supporting React. React applies specific semantics to JSX syntax that ESLint doesn't recognize. We recommend using eslint-plugin-react if you are using React and want React semantics.

Does Prettier replace ESLint?

No, ESLint and Prettier have different jobs: ESLint is a linter (looking for problematic patterns) and Prettier is a code formatter. Using both tools is common, refer to Prettier's documentation to learn how to configure them to work well with each other.

What ECMAScript versions does ESLint support?

ESLint has full support for ECMAScript 3, 5, and every year from 2015 up until the most recent stage 4 specification (the default). You can set your desired ECMAScript syntax and other settings (like global variables) through configuration.

What about experimental features?

ESLint's parser only officially supports the latest final ECMAScript standard. We will make changes to core rules in order to avoid crashes on stage 3 ECMAScript syntax proposals (as long as they are implemented using the correct experimental ESTree syntax). We may make changes to core rules to better work with language extensions (such as JSX, Flow, and TypeScript) on a case-by-case basis.

In other cases (including if rules need to warn on more or fewer cases due to new syntax, rather than just not crashing), we recommend you use other parsers and/or rule plugins. If you are using Babel, you can use @babel/eslint-parser and @babel/eslint-plugin to use any option available in Babel.

Once a language feature has been adopted into the ECMAScript standard (stage 4 according to the TC39 process), we will accept issues and pull requests related to the new feature, subject to our contributing guidelines. Until then, please use the appropriate parser and plugin(s) for your experimental feature.

Which Node.js versions does ESLint support?

ESLint updates the supported Node.js versions with each major release of ESLint. At that time, ESLint's supported Node.js versions are updated to be:

  1. The most recent maintenance release of Node.js
  2. The lowest minor version of the Node.js LTS release that includes the features the ESLint team wants to use.
  3. The Node.js Current release

ESLint is also expected to work with Node.js versions released after the Node.js Current release.

Refer to the Quick Start Guide for the officially supported Node.js versions for a given ESLint release.

Where to ask for help?

Open a discussion or stop by our Discord server.

Why doesn't ESLint lock dependency versions?

Lock files like package-lock.json are helpful for deployed applications. They ensure that dependencies are consistent between environments and across deployments.

Packages like eslint that get published to the npm registry do not include lock files. npm install eslint as a user will respect version constraints in ESLint's package.json. ESLint and its dependencies will be included in the user's lock file if one exists, but ESLint's own lock file would not be used.

We intentionally don't lock dependency versions so that we have the latest compatible dependency versions in development and CI that our users get when installing ESLint in a project.

The Twilio blog has a deeper dive to learn more.

Releases

We have scheduled releases every two weeks on Friday or Saturday. You can follow a release issue for updates about the scheduling of any particular release.

Security Policy

ESLint takes security seriously. We work hard to ensure that ESLint is safe for everyone and that security issues are addressed quickly and responsibly. Read the full security policy.

Semantic Versioning Policy

ESLint follows semantic versioning. However, due to the nature of ESLint as a code quality tool, it's not always clear when a minor or major version bump occurs. To help clarify this for everyone, we've defined the following semantic versioning policy for ESLint:

  • Patch release (intended to not break your lint build)
    • A bug fix in a rule that results in ESLint reporting fewer linting errors.
    • A bug fix to the CLI or core (including formatters).
    • Improvements to documentation.
    • Non-user-facing changes such as refactoring code, adding, deleting, or modifying tests, and increasing test coverage.
    • Re-releasing after a failed release (i.e., publishing a release that doesn't work for anyone).
  • Minor release (might break your lint build)
    • A bug fix in a rule that results in ESLint reporting more linting errors.
    • A new rule is created.
    • A new option to an existing rule that does not result in ESLint reporting more linting errors by default.
    • A new addition to an existing rule to support a newly-added language feature (within the last 12 months) that will result in ESLint reporting more linting errors by default.
    • An existing rule is deprecated.
    • A new CLI capability is created.
    • New capabilities to the public API are added (new classes, new methods, new arguments to existing methods, etc.).
    • A new formatter is created.
    • eslint:recommended is updated and will result in strictly fewer linting errors (e.g., rule removals).
  • Major release (likely to break your lint build)
    • eslint:recommended is updated and may result in new linting errors (e.g., rule additions, most rule option updates).
    • A new option to an existing rule that results in ESLint reporting more linting errors by default.
    • An existing formatter is removed.
    • Part of the public API is removed or changed in an incompatible way. The public API includes:
      • Rule schemas
      • Configuration schema
      • Command-line options
      • Node.js API
      • Rule, formatter, parser, plugin APIs

According to our policy, any minor update may report more linting errors than the previous release (ex: from a bug fix). As such, we recommend using the tilde (~) in package.json e.g. "eslint": "~3.1.0" to guarantee the results of your builds.

Stylistic Rule Updates

Stylistic rules are frozen according to our policy on how we evaluate new rules and rule changes. This means:

  • Bug fixes: We will still fix bugs in stylistic rules.
  • New ECMAScript features: We will also make sure stylistic rules are compatible with new ECMAScript features.
  • New options: We will not add any new options to stylistic rules unless an option is the only way to fix a bug or support a newly-added ECMAScript feature.

License

FOSSA Status

Team

These folks keep the project moving and are resources for help.

Technical Steering Committee (TSC)

The people who manage releases, review feature requests, and meet regularly to ensure ESLint is properly maintained.

Nicholas C. Zakas's Avatar
Nicholas C. Zakas 		Francesco Trotta's Avatar
Francesco Trotta 		Milos Djermanovic's Avatar
Milos Djermanovic

Reviewers

The people who review and implement new features.

唯然's Avatar
唯然 		Nitin Kumar's Avatar
Nitin Kumar

Committers

The people who review and fix bugs and help triage issues.

Josh Goldberg ✨'s Avatar
Josh Goldberg ✨ 		Tanuj Kanti's Avatar
Tanuj Kanti

Website Team

Team members who focus specifically on eslint.org

Amaresh S M's Avatar
Amaresh S M 		Strek's Avatar
Strek 		Percy Ma's Avatar
Percy Ma

Sponsors

The following companies, organizations, and individuals support ESLint's ongoing maintenance and development. Become a Sponsor to get your logo on our READMEs and website.

Platinum Sponsors

Automattic Airbnb

Gold Sponsors

trunk.io

Silver Sponsors

SERP Triumph JetBrains Liftoff American Express Workleap

Bronze Sponsors

Cybozu Syntax WordHint Anagram Solver Icons8 Discord GitBook Nx Mercedes-Benz Group HeroCoders

Technology Sponsors

Technology sponsors allow us to use their products and services for free as part of a contribution to the open source ecosystem and our work.

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