Gulp vs SWC
Gulp
gulpjs.com
SWC
swc.rsSide by side
| Figure | Gulp | SWC |
|---|---|---|
| Price from | — | Free |
| Free plan | — | Yes |
| Free trial | — | — |
| Open source | — | — |
| Web | — | Yes |
| Windows | Yes | Yes |
| macOS | Yes | Yes |
| Linux | Yes | Yes |
| Android | — | Yes |
| API | — | Yes |
| Plans published | 0 | 1 |
| Spec score · JavaScript Build Tools | 7.6 (#14) | 8.3 (#4) |
| Compatibility | The project describes Gulp as platform-agnostic and says integrations are built into major IDEs and it is used with PHP, .NET, Node.js, Java, and other platforms. | SWC's compilation is intended to support all ECMAScript features, and its migration guide says it supports stage 3 proposals and preset-env, including bugfix transforms. |
| Integrations | The project README describes integrations with major IDEs and use with PHP, .NET, Node.js, Java, and other platforms. | The site names Next.js, Parcel, and Deno as tools that use SWC. |
| Purpose | Gulp is a toolkit for automating slow or repetitive development workflows and composing them into build pipelines. | SWC is an extensible Rust-based platform for fast developer tools that can compile and bundle JavaScript and TypeScript. |
Plans
In their own words
SWC
SWC is a free, extensible Rust-based platform for tools that compile and bundle JavaScript and TypeScript. It transforms modern JavaScript and TypeScript into code intended for major browsers, and supports minification, WebAssembly transforms, and custom plugins. Its core API parses ECMAScript, TypeScript, and Flow syntax; the documentation describes that API as mainly useful to build-tool authors. Integrations include webpack, Rspack, and Jest, while Next.js, Parcel, and Deno are among the tools named as users. A WebAssembly module can transform code synchronously inside a browser. SWC can be installed as prebuilt binaries or built from source, with packages documented for npm, Yarn, pnpm, Bun, and Deno. The site states that it is 20x faster than Babel on one thread and 70x faster on four cores. The bundling documentation says that feature will be dropped in v2 and recommends SWC-based bundlers instead. It also warns that its polyfill usage mode is less efficient than Babel for certain dynamically computed property expressions.