wtf is performance-compare?

This repository measures how fast different JavaScript build tools are at their core jobs. Build tools take your source code and prepare it for browsers, they bundle files, compile modern JavaScript down to older versions, and handle live preview during development. This project compares five popular options (Farm, Webpack, Vite, Rspack, and Turbopack) head-to-head using the same test project with 1,000 React components. The benchmark tests three critical moments in a developer's workflow. "Startup" measures how long it takes for the development server to start up so you can begin coding. "HMR" (Hot Module Replacement) measures how fast changes appear in your browser when you edit code, tested both when you change a root file and when you change a leaf file deep in the dependency tree. "Production Build" measures how long a final, optimized version takes to compile for shipping to users. The results are displayed in tables and charts so you can visually compare which tools are fastest at each task. You'd use this if you're deciding which build tool to adopt for a new project, or if you're curious whether switching tools would speed up your development workflow. For example, if HMR delays frustrate your team during active development, this benchmark shows you that Farm updates changes in 10-11ms while Webpack takes 265-345ms, potentially saving hundreds of hours of developer waiting time on a large team over a year. The repository includes the actual test setup and scripts, so you can run the benchmarks yourself on your own machine to verify the results. The project reuses test cases from Turbopack's official benchmarks, ensuring a fair comparison across tools. If you want to see the live behavior yourself, you can spin up the test project with any of the five build tools using simple commands like npm run start:vite or npm run start:webpack, making it easy to feel the real-world difference in responsiveness.