BundleBench Review: The Zero-Config JavaScript Bundler You Should Try

Bundlers are at the heart of frontend performance, developer velocity, and deployment complexity. BundleBench is the newest entrant promising a zero-config experience, modern tree-shaking, and a special focus on e-commerce-style component shops where bundle size directly impacts conversions.

What we tested

We evaluated BundleBench across three representative projects:

1. A small component library with CSS-in-JS and dynamic imports.
2. A medium-sized single-page storefront built with React and TypeScript.
3. A server-side rendered product catalog with Next-like routing.

Benchmark summary

All measurements were taken on a 2023 CI runner with cold cache builds and warm cache rebuilds. Key findings:

• Cold build time: BundleBench averaged 42% faster than Webpack 5 out of the box, and 18% faster than Vite in production builds.
• Rebuild latency: Hot updates were very fast — comparable to Vite, thanks to the bundler's partial-hmr strategy.
• Final bundle size: On the component library test, BundleBench produced bundles that were 6-12% smaller than Rollup and slightly smaller than Vite in many cases.

Developer experience

Installation is straightforward: a single devDependency and a couple of CLI flags for production. The zero-config promise holds for most apps, but large monorepos with custom plugins will need configuration. The bundler provides a readable build output with warnings and dependency graphs that helped us find duplicate packages and accidental large imports.

Compatibility and plugin ecosystem

BundleBench supports common ecosystems (React, Vue, Svelte) and TypeScript. It provides a plugin API, but the ecosystem is nascent. If your workflow depends on advanced webpack loaders or esbuild-only plugins, you may need to wait for parity or build adapters.

Security and supply chain

Security-first features include signed releases and reproducible builds. The bundler can embed integrity checks and produces a deterministic output when dependencies are pinned. For marketplaces, this reduces supply chain risk for published artifacts.

Pros and Cons

Pros:

• Excellent cold build performance.
• Small output bundles thanks to modern tree-shaking.
• Great default DX with helpful logging.

Cons:

• Lightweight plugin ecosystem — some niche integrations are missing.
• Edge cases in SSR configurations require manual tuning.
• Tooling around legacy CommonJS interop is still improving.

Scoring

We score tools on performance, DX, compatibility, and maturity (0-10):

• Performance: 9/10
• Developer Experience: 8/10
• Compatibility: 7/10
• Maturity: 6/10

When to choose BundleBench

BundleBench is an excellent fit if:

• You run single-repo storefronts or component shops and want smaller production bundles.
• You value fast cold builds for CI and easy local developer setup.
• You prefer a modern toolchain and can tolerate a younger plugin ecosystem.

When not to choose it

If you rely heavily on webpack-specific plugins or need guaranteed enterprise support today, Stick with your current tool until the ecosystem matures.

"BundleBench gives you the performance wins of newer bundlers with a remarkably ergonomic default setup — just beware of plugin gaps for very customized workloads."

Verdict: For most modern JavaScript shops, BundleBench is worth testing. It delivers tangible build-time and bundle-size improvements and can boost developer velocity. We give BundleBench a final rating of 8/10.