Black vs Prettier

Black is a free, MIT-licensed formatter for Python code that follows PEP 8. It reformats whole files in place and uses a default line length of 88 characters. Its limited style choices are intended to keep code consistent across projects; indentation style cannot be configured. After formatting, Black checks whether the abstract syntax tree remains effectively equivalent and raises an error if the check fails. Install it with pip; it requires Python 3.10 or newer. The documentation lists editor integrations including Emacs, PyCharm, IntelliJ IDEA, Vim, Neovim, Visual Studio Code and Sublime Text, as well as GitHub Actions and doctest workflows. Notebook formatting is available with the jupyter extra, though Black skips cells containing certain magics or invalid syntax. It also includes blackd, an HTTP server that binds to localhost by default. Black is primarily a command-line tool and does not provide a Python interface. Stable releases preserve formatting within the same calendar year when the options match.

Prettier is an open-source code formatter that parses source files and prints them in a consistent style while accounting for line length. Its built-in languages include JavaScript, JSX, Angular, Vue, Flow, TypeScript, CSS, Less, SCSS, HTML, JSON, GraphQL, Markdown, YAML, LWC, and MJML. The command-line interface can write formatted files with --write or check formatting with --check in continuous integration. Listed editor integrations include VS Code, Emacs, Vim, Helix, Sublime Text, JetBrains IDEs, Visual Studio, and Espresso; formatting can run from a shortcut or on save. Prettier has configuration options but keeps them limited. Plugins can add languages and formatting rules, and languages outside the built-in set require a plugin. For ESLint integration, the installation guidance recommends eslint-config-prettier to disable rules that are unnecessary or may conflict. Prettier supports browser and JavaScript API use, along with Linux, macOS, and Windows. The listed plan is free. Commercial support and maintenance are available through the Tidelift Subscription.