pnpm is a fast, disk space efficient package manager for JavaScript projects. It uses a unique approach to package management by leveraging hard links and symlinks to reduce the disk space usage and speed up installation times. pnpm also provides features like parallel installation and atomic updates to ensure efficient package management.
While pnpm offers a different approach to package management, there are other popular package managers in the JavaScript ecosystem. Here are a couple of alternatives:
- npm is the default package manager for Node.js and JavaScript projects. It is widely used and offers a comprehensive set of features for managing dependencies, scripts, and publishing packages.
- yarn is another popular package manager that aims to improve upon npm's performance and reliability. It provides features like offline caching, deterministic installs, and parallel execution to enhance the development workflow.
For a detailed comparison of npm, pnpm, and yarn, check out: Comparing npm vs pnpm vs yarn.
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Fast, disk space efficient package manager:
- Fast. Up to 2x faster than the alternatives (see benchmark).
- Efficient. Files inside
node_modules are linked from a single content-addressable storage.
- Great for monorepos.
- Strict. A package can access only dependencies that are specified in its
package.json.
- Deterministic. Has a lockfile called
pnpm-lock.yaml.
- Works as a Node.js version manager. See pnpm env use.
- Works everywhere. Supports Windows, Linux, and macOS.
- Battle-tested. Used in production by teams of all sizes since 2016.
- See the full feature comparison with npm and Yarn.
To quote the Rush team:
Microsoft uses pnpm in Rush repos with hundreds of projects and hundreds of PRs per day, and we’ve found it to be very fast and reliable.
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Background
pnpm uses a content-addressable filesystem to store all files from all module directories on a disk.
When using npm, if you have 100 projects using lodash, you will have 100 copies of lodash on disk.
With pnpm, lodash will be stored in a content-addressable storage, so:
- If you depend on different versions of lodash, only the files that differ are added to the store.
If lodash has 100 files, and a new version has a change only in one of those files,
pnpm update will only add 1 new file to the storage.
- All the files are saved in a single place on the disk. When packages are installed, their files are linked
from that single place consuming no additional disk space. Linking is performed using either hard-links or reflinks (copy-on-write).
As a result, you save gigabytes of space on your disk and you have a lot faster installations!
If you'd like more details about the unique node_modules structure that pnpm creates and
why it works fine with the Node.js ecosystem, read this small article: Flat node_modules is not the only way.
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Installation
For installation options visit our website.
Usage
Just use pnpm in place of npm/Yarn. E.g., install dependencies via:
pnpm install
For more advanced usage, read pnpm CLI on our website, or run pnpm help.
Benchmark
pnpm is up to 2x faster than npm and Yarn classic. See all benchmarks here.
Benchmarks on an app with lots of dependencies:
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License
MIT
