This is not a general-purpose argument about whether browserify or webpack is better, but rather some reduced test cases that are useful specific to the Webmaker App project. https://github.com/mozilla/webmaker-app.
For production, my goal was to perform as many optimizations as possible to reduce the final bundle size.
browserify -e ${srcFile} -t [reactify --es6 --target es5] | uglifyjs -c ${compressorString} --mangle > ${destFile}
Compressor options:
{
sequences: true,
dead_code: true,
conditionals: true,
booleans: true,
unused: true,
if_return: true,
join_vars: true,
drop_console: true
}
webpack ${srcFile} ${destFile} -p --config ${webpackConfig}`
==============
Single react require.
==============
BROWSERIFY 167.899kb
WEBPACK 150.335kb
( Diff: 12%, or 18kb )
==============
React with addons.
==============
BROWSERIFY 184.758kb
WEBPACK 165.329kb
( Diff: 12%, or 19kb )
==============
React with addons, react-router, and firebase.
==============
BROWSERIFY 367.012kb
WEBPACK 341.378kb
( Diff: 8%, or 26kb )
==============
Complete wm.app dependency tree
==============
BROWSERIFY 574.526kb
WEBPACK 494.073kb
( Diff: 16%, or 80kb )