Biome vs Ruff
Biome
biomejs.dev
Ruff
docs.astral.shSide by side
| Figure | Biome | Ruff |
|---|---|---|
| Price from | Free | Free |
| Free plan | Yes | Yes |
| Free trial | — | — |
| Open source | — | — |
| Web | Yes | Yes |
| Windows | Yes | Yes |
| macOS | Yes | Yes |
| Linux | Yes | Yes |
| Self-hosted | — | Yes |
| Plans published | 1 | 1 |
| Spec score · Code Formatting Tools | 8.2 (#6) | 7.9 (#12) |
| Spec score · Linters | 8.2 (#7) | 7.7 (#22) |
| CI integrations | The getting-started guide links CI integrations for GitHub Actions and GitLab CI. | Ruff documents integrations for GitHub Actions and GitLab CI/CD, and hooks for pre-commit. |
| Editor integrations | First-party extensions are available for VS Code, IntelliJ, and Zed. | The setup guide documents integrations including VS Code, Sublime Text, PyCharm, and Zed. |
| Formatter | Biome formats JavaScript, TypeScript, JSX, TSX, JSON, HTML, CSS, and GraphQL. | Ruff’s formatter is designed as a drop-in replacement for Black, though the FAQ notes there may be differences at the margins. |
| Purpose | Biome is a toolchain for web projects that provides tools to maintain project health. | Ruff is a Python linter and code formatter written in Rust. |
Plans
In their own words
Biome
Biome is a toolchain for maintaining the health of web projects. It formats JavaScript, TypeScript, JSX, TSX, JSON, HTML, CSS, and GraphQL, and provides lint rules for JavaScript, TypeScript, JSX, CSS, and GraphQL. Linting can report diagnostics and apply safe fixes. Its check command can format files, lint them, and organize imports in one run. Biome is distributed as a standalone executable, so it does not require Node.js. Installation instructions cover npm, pnpm, bun, deno, and yarn. First-party editor extensions are available for VS Code, IntelliJ, and Zed; community extensions include Vim, Neovim, and Sublime Text. The getting-started guide links to CI integrations for GitHub Actions and GitLab CI. Biome describes itself as open source and lists MIT or Apache 2.0 licensing. The open-source toolchain is free. Contributors may offer commercial support, but requests depend on their availability.
Ruff
Ruff is a Python linter and code formatter written in Rust, available free under a permissive open-source license. It includes more than 900 built-in lint rules, including native versions of popular Flake8 plugin rules, and can automatically correct violations such as unused imports. Its formatter aims to serve as a replacement for Black, though the documentation allows for differences in some cases. The built-in Ruff Language Server supplies diagnostics, fixes, and formatting; the documentation recommends pairing it with another Python language server for navigation and autocompletion. Setup guidance covers VS Code, Sublime Text, PyCharm, and Zed, while CI support includes GitHub Actions, GitLab CI/CD, and pre-commit hooks. Ruff can be installed through uv, pip, pipx, standalone installers, Homebrew, Conda, and other package managers. It supports configuration in pyproject.toml, ruff.toml, or .ruff.toml. A Bandit-derived rule group checks for common Python security issues. Ruff runs on Linux, macOS, and Windows, and is also published as a Docker image. The maker describes it as 10–100x faster than tools such as Flake8 and Black.