Rush vs Yarn

Rush is a monorepo manager for JavaScript developers who build and publish many packages from a shared Git repository. It can install dependencies, link projects, build, generate change logs, update versions, and publish packages to an npm registry. Build modes include parallel, subset, incremental, and distributed builds. Rush puts dependencies in a common folder and uses symlinks to recreate a node_modules folder for each project. Its installation algorithm supports PNPM, NPM, and Yarn. For releases, it gathers change files and updates package versions and changelogs before publishing. Project folders remain self-contained: they can be built without Rush or moved to a separate repository without code changes. Rush runs on Linux, macOS, and Windows; its getting-started demo lists NodeJS as the only prerequisite. Plugins can share configuration and extend features, but the plugin framework is marked experimental. Microsoft does not provide official support; community help is directed to GitHub issues and Rush Stack Zulip. Rush is free and open source.

Yarn is a package manager and project manager for JavaScript projects, serving uses from simple projects to industry monorepos. It resolves dependencies, maintains lockfiles and provides workspaces that install and link packages within a project. Modern Yarn uses Plug'n'Play by default, generating a Node.js loader file instead of a typical node_modules folder; users can choose node_modules or pnpm-style symlink installs instead. Yarn caches installed packages and shares them among projects on the same machine. Its offline mirror and zero-installs workflow can keep cached packages in a repository and reduce reliance on the npm registry. Plugins can extend resolvers, fetchers, linkers, commands and lifecycle hooks. Generated editor SDKs and settings support VSCode, Vim, Emacs and Neovim. Yarn runs on Linux, macOS and Windows and is free, with no paid plans or usage limits stated. Its documentation notes that React Native and Expo require typical node_modules installs. Yarn does not run audits during installation by default; users can run yarn npm audit separately.