ethers vs ethjs
Ethereum JavaScript Libraries Comparison
1 Year
ethersethjs
What's Ethereum JavaScript Libraries?

Ethereum JavaScript libraries are essential tools for developers working with the Ethereum blockchain. They provide a set of functionalities that allow developers to interact with smart contracts, manage accounts, and perform transactions on the Ethereum network. These libraries abstract the complexities of blockchain interactions, making it easier to build decentralized applications (dApps) and integrate blockchain functionalities into web applications. The choice between different libraries often depends on specific project requirements, such as ease of use, performance, and community support.

Package Weekly Downloads Trend
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Package
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ethers1,756,6498,21012.6 MB5893 months agoMIT
ethjs5,401611-237 years agoMIT
Feature Comparison: ethers vs ethjs

Security

  • ethers:

    Ethers.js places a strong emphasis on security, providing built-in features to help prevent common vulnerabilities, such as reentrancy attacks. It also includes utilities for securely managing private keys and signing transactions, ensuring that sensitive data is handled with care.

  • ethjs:

    Ethjs is designed to be minimalistic, which can sometimes lead to less built-in security features compared to Ethers.js. Developers using Ethjs need to be more vigilant about implementing security best practices, especially when managing private keys and signing transactions.

Ease of Use

  • ethers:

    Ethers.js is known for its user-friendly API, which simplifies the process of interacting with Ethereum. Its clear documentation and modular design make it accessible for developers of all skill levels, allowing for quick onboarding and efficient development.

  • ethjs:

    Ethjs offers a more flexible approach, which can be advantageous for experienced developers who want to customize their interactions with Ethereum. However, this flexibility may come at the cost of a steeper learning curve for beginners.

Modularity

  • ethers:

    Ethers.js is highly modular, allowing developers to import only the components they need for their projects. This modularity helps keep the bundle size small and enhances performance, making it ideal for web applications that require efficient loading times.

  • ethjs:

    Ethjs is also modular but tends to be more minimalistic in its approach. This can lead to a smaller footprint but may require additional work to implement certain functionalities that are readily available in Ethers.js.

Community Support

  • ethers:

    Ethers.js has a strong and active community, with extensive documentation, tutorials, and examples available. This support network can be invaluable for developers seeking assistance or looking to learn best practices in Ethereum development.

  • ethjs:

    Ethjs has a smaller community compared to Ethers.js, which may result in less available resources and support. Developers may need to rely more on personal research and experimentation when using Ethjs.

Performance

  • ethers:

    Ethers.js is optimized for performance, providing efficient methods for interacting with the Ethereum blockchain. Its design minimizes unnecessary computations and network requests, resulting in faster transaction processing and lower latency.

  • ethjs:

    Ethjs is lightweight and can perform well in many scenarios, but its performance may vary depending on how developers implement their interactions. Custom optimizations may be necessary to achieve the best performance.

How to Choose: ethers vs ethjs
  • ethers:

    Choose Ethers.js if you need a comprehensive library that emphasizes security, simplicity, and a rich set of utilities for interacting with Ethereum. Ethers.js is designed to be lightweight and modular, making it a great choice for both beginners and experienced developers looking for a straightforward API.

  • ethjs:

    Choose Ethjs if you prefer a library that is focused on providing a minimalistic and flexible interface for Ethereum interactions. Ethjs is lightweight and can be easily integrated into various projects, making it suitable for developers who want to build custom solutions without the overhead of a larger library.

README for ethers

The Ethers Project

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A complete, compact and simple library for Ethereum and ilk, written in TypeScript.

Features

  • Keep your private keys in your client, safe and sound
  • Import and export JSON wallets (Geth, Parity and crowdsale)
  • Import and export BIP 39 mnemonic phrases (12 word backup phrases) and HD Wallets (English as well as Czech, French, Italian, Japanese, Korean, Simplified Chinese, Spanish, Traditional Chinese)
  • Meta-classes create JavaScript objects from any contract ABI, including ABIv2 and Human-Readable ABI
  • Connect to Ethereum nodes over JSON-RPC, INFURA, Etherscan, Alchemy, Ankr or MetaMask
  • ENS names are first-class citizens; they can be used anywhere an Ethereum addresses can be used
  • Small (~144kb compressed; 460kb uncompressed)
  • Tree-shaking focused; include only what you need during bundling
  • Complete functionality for all your Ethereum desires
  • Extensive documentation
  • Large collection of test cases which are maintained and added to
  • Fully written in TypeScript, with strict types for security and safety
  • MIT License (including ALL dependencies); completely open source to do with as you please

Keep Updated

For advisories and important notices, follow @ethersproject on Twitter (low-traffic, non-marketing, important information only) as well as watch this GitHub project.

For more general news, discussions, and feedback, follow or DM me, @ricmoo on Twitter or on the Ethers Discord.

For the latest changes, see the CHANGELOG.

Summaries

Installing

NodeJS

/home/ricmoo/some_project> npm install ethers

Browser (ESM)

The bundled library is available in the ./dist/ folder in this repo.

<script type="module">
    import { ethers } from "./dist/ethers.min.js";
</script>

Documentation

Browse the documentation online:

Providers

Ethers works closely with an ever-growing list of third-party providers to ensure getting started is quick and easy, by providing default keys to each service.

These built-in keys mean you can use ethers.getDefaultProvider() and start developing right away.

However, the API keys provided to ethers are also shared and are intentionally throttled to encourage developers to eventually get their own keys, which unlock many other features, such as faster responses, more capacity, analytics and other features like archival data.

When you are ready to sign up and start using for your own keys, please check out the Provider API Keys in the documentation.

A special thanks to these services for providing community resources:

Extension Packages

The ethers package only includes the most common and most core functionality to interact with Ethereum. There are many other packages designed to further enhance the functionality and experience.

  • MulticallProvider - A Provider which bundles multiple call requests into a single call to reduce latency and backend request capacity
  • MulticoinPlugin - A Provider plugin to expand the support of ENS coin types
  • GanaceProvider - A Provider for in-memory node instances, for fast debugging, testing and simulating blockchain operations
  • Optimism Utilities - A collection of Optimism utilities
  • LedgerSigner - A Signer to interact directly with Ledger Hardware Wallets

License

MIT License (including all dependencies).