eventemitter3 vs mitt vs tiny-emitter vs nanoevents
Event Emitter Libraries Comparison
1 Year
eventemitter3mitttiny-emitternanoevents
What's Event Emitter Libraries?

Event emitter libraries are essential tools in JavaScript for managing event-driven programming. They provide a way to create, listen to, and emit events, facilitating communication between different parts of an application. These libraries are particularly useful in scenarios where decoupling components is necessary, allowing for more modular and maintainable code. Each library offers unique features and performance characteristics, making them suitable for different use cases in web development.

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Package
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eventemitter342,805,7693,38773.4 kB172 years agoMIT
mitt9,268,41511,12026.4 kB202 years agoMIT
tiny-emitter4,136,680947-96 years agoMIT
nanoevents149,9551,5165.43 kB05 months agoMIT
Feature Comparison: eventemitter3 vs mitt vs tiny-emitter vs nanoevents

Performance

  • eventemitter3:

    EventEmitter3 is optimized for performance, boasting a minimal overhead and fast event dispatching. It can handle a high volume of events efficiently, making it suitable for applications where performance is critical.

  • mitt:

    Mitt is extremely lightweight and designed for speed, making it one of the fastest event emitters available. Its simplicity contributes to its performance, as it avoids unnecessary complexity.

  • tiny-emitter:

    TinyEmitter strikes a good balance between performance and functionality. While not as fast as some of the more specialized libraries, it still performs well for most use cases without significant overhead.

  • nanoevents:

    Nanoevents is built with performance in mind, offering a very low overhead and fast event handling capabilities. It is particularly effective in scenarios with numerous events due to its efficient design.

API Complexity

  • eventemitter3:

    EventEmitter3 provides a rich API with advanced features such as wildcard event listeners and namespaces, making it suitable for complex applications that require detailed event management.

  • mitt:

    Mitt offers a minimalistic API that is easy to understand and use. It focuses on the core functionality of event emitting without additional complexity, making it ideal for beginners or simple projects.

  • tiny-emitter:

    TinyEmitter provides a simple yet effective API that supports basic event handling needs. It is easy to learn and implement, making it suitable for developers of all skill levels.

  • nanoevents:

    Nanoevents has a straightforward API that emphasizes simplicity and ease of use. It allows developers to quickly implement event handling without getting bogged down by unnecessary features.

Memory Usage

  • eventemitter3:

    EventEmitter3 is designed to be memory efficient, but its advanced features may lead to higher memory usage compared to simpler libraries, especially in applications with many events and listeners.

  • mitt:

    Mitt is extremely lightweight, resulting in minimal memory usage. Its simplicity ensures that it does not consume more resources than necessary, making it ideal for performance-sensitive applications.

  • tiny-emitter:

    TinyEmitter maintains a low memory footprint while providing essential event handling capabilities. It is a good choice for projects where memory usage is a concern.

  • nanoevents:

    Nanoevents is very memory efficient, designed to handle a large number of events without significant memory overhead. This makes it suitable for applications that require scalability.

Use Cases

  • eventemitter3:

    EventEmitter3 is well-suited for complex applications that require detailed event management, such as large-scale web applications or frameworks that need to manage multiple event types and listeners.

  • mitt:

    Mitt is perfect for small to medium-sized projects where simplicity is key. It is often used in scenarios where quick event handling is needed without the overhead of a more complex library.

  • tiny-emitter:

    TinyEmitter is versatile enough for both small and medium projects, providing a good mix of features and simplicity, making it suitable for a wide range of applications.

  • nanoevents:

    Nanoevents excels in modern applications that prioritize performance and scalability, making it ideal for high-frequency event handling in real-time applications.

Community and Support

  • eventemitter3:

    EventEmitter3 has a robust community and is well-documented, providing ample resources for developers. Its popularity ensures ongoing support and updates.

  • mitt:

    Mitt, while simpler, has garnered a supportive community due to its ease of use. However, it may not have as extensive documentation as some of the more complex libraries.

  • tiny-emitter:

    TinyEmitter has a moderate level of community support and documentation, providing enough resources for developers to get started and troubleshoot common issues.

  • nanoevents:

    Nanoevents is gaining traction in the developer community, and its documentation is clear and concise, making it easy to adopt and implement in projects.

How to Choose: eventemitter3 vs mitt vs tiny-emitter vs nanoevents
  • eventemitter3:

    Choose EventEmitter3 if you need a highly performant and feature-rich event emitter with support for namespaces and wildcards. It's ideal for applications requiring complex event management and high throughput.

  • mitt:

    Select Mitt for its simplicity and minimal footprint. It's perfect for small projects or when you need a straightforward event emitter without additional features, making it easy to integrate into any application.

  • tiny-emitter:

    Use TinyEmitter when you need a balance between features and size. It offers a simple API while supporting multiple listeners and event types, making it suitable for both small and medium-sized applications.

  • nanoevents:

    Opt for Nanoevents if you want a lightweight solution with a focus on performance and simplicity. It’s designed for modern JavaScript environments and is particularly useful in scenarios where you need to manage a large number of events efficiently.

README for eventemitter3

EventEmitter3

Version npmCICoverage Status

Sauce Test Status

EventEmitter3 is a high performance EventEmitter. It has been micro-optimized for various of code paths making this, one of, if not the fastest EventEmitter available for Node.js and browsers. The module is API compatible with the EventEmitter that ships by default with Node.js but there are some slight differences:

  • Domain support has been removed.
  • We do not throw an error when you emit an error event and nobody is listening.
  • The newListener and removeListener events have been removed as they are useful only in some uncommon use-cases.
  • The setMaxListeners, getMaxListeners, prependListener and prependOnceListener methods are not available.
  • Support for custom context for events so there is no need to use fn.bind.
  • The removeListener method removes all matching listeners, not only the first.

It's a drop in replacement for existing EventEmitters, but just faster. Free performance, who wouldn't want that? The EventEmitter is written in EcmaScript 3 so it will work in the oldest browsers and node versions that you need to support.

Installation

$ npm install --save eventemitter3

CDN

Recommended CDN:

https://unpkg.com/eventemitter3@latest/dist/eventemitter3.umd.min.js

Usage

After installation the only thing you need to do is require the module:

var EventEmitter = require('eventemitter3');

And you're ready to create your own EventEmitter instances. For the API documentation, please follow the official Node.js documentation:

http://nodejs.org/api/events.html

Contextual emits

We've upgraded the API of the EventEmitter.on, EventEmitter.once and EventEmitter.removeListener to accept an extra argument which is the context or this value that should be set for the emitted events. This means you no longer have the overhead of an event that required fn.bind in order to get a custom this value.

var EE = new EventEmitter()
  , context = { foo: 'bar' };

function emitted() {
  console.log(this === context); // true
}

EE.once('event-name', emitted, context);
EE.on('another-event', emitted, context);
EE.removeListener('another-event', emitted, context);

Tests and benchmarks

This module is well tested. You can run:

  • npm test to run the tests under Node.js.
  • npm run test-browser to run the tests in real browsers via Sauce Labs.

We also have a set of benchmarks to compare EventEmitter3 with some available alternatives. To run the benchmarks run npm run benchmark.

Tests and benchmarks are not included in the npm package. If you want to play with them you have to clone the GitHub repository. Note that you will have to run an additional npm i in the benchmarks folder before npm run benchmark.

License

MIT