Question: What's the difference with electron-forge?

[lopezjurip]

I'm building a Electron app and I just found this Github organization with two interesting projects:

• electron-builder
• electron-forge

But I can't find information about their difference 😞

• What are the pros and _cons?
• How do they relate to https://github.com/electron/electron-compile?
• Does support Babel out-of-the-box?
• Does they support minify, Tree-shaking, Dead-code-elimination? How about Node.js native dependencies?
• Which one comes with less boilerplate?

Any help is appreciated.

[zeke]

cc @malept @MarshallOfSound

[develar]

electron-builder it is a tool to build your Electron application.

electron-forge it is a tool to build your Electron application PLUS boilerplate to create electron app.

What are the pros and _cons?

electron-builder supports

• code signing (CI support, auto discovery, multi-platform windows code sign)
• publishing (including Bintray, S3 support coming soon)
• easy way to configure files to pack (files, extraFiles and extraResources).
• Numerous targets (including AppImage, Snap, pkg and so on).
• Build all targets using one unified interface.
• server-less auto update

How do they relate to https://github.com/electron/electron-compile?

electron-builder and electron-forge are tools to build your electron app. electron-compile to create.

Does support Babel out-of-the-box?

For electron-builder it is out of scope, for electron-forge as well (so, electron-forge uses it under the hood).

Does they support minify, Tree-shaking, Dead-code-elimination? How about Node.js native dependencies?

Both tools supports native node deps management. electron-builder also supports Yarn. Maybe electron-builder does it better, but it depends. In any case you can use electron-rebuild (this tool is used under the hood by electron-forge).

Which one comes with less boilerplate?

electron-builder. Because electron-forge also helps you to create your app, not only to build. But electron-forge also doesn't create tons of boilerplate code, as far I know.

In short: you don't need to choose or only electron-forge, or only electron-builder. electron-builder doesn't restrict you and you can use any framework and any packaging tool. You can use electron-builder to pack only in a distributable format.

[MarshallOfSound]

I'll answer the questions the same way as @develar 👍

What are the pros and _cons?

electron-forge supports

• code signing
• publishing (github, with bintray and S3 coming soon)
• maximum customizability, we just wire up other packages together, you can pass whatever config you want, to any of our dependencies. You retain full control of your own build process
• Numerous targets as well 😆 Zip, DMG, Squirrel, Appx, Flatpack and so on
• Start, Build, Package, Lint and do everything through Electron Forge while still retaining all the customizability mentioned above. Benefit of this is things like native modules work seamlessly in your development environment as well as when packaging your application
• Support auto update through the standard Electron Auto-Update compatible artifacts that Squirrel.Windows and Squirrel.Mac require.

How do they relate to https://github.com/electron/electron-compile?

electron-forge not only builds your application it helps you create them as well, by using -compile under the hood you can use futuristic JS features with zero config on your part. You can even use cool languages like TypeScript, LESS, SCSS and Jade templates with no config (they just work). We also have built in templates for react, react-typescript, angular2 and vue so it's super easy to get started with a new Electron application.

Does support Babel out-of-the-box?

See above 👍 yes electron-forge supports babel transpilation (through electron-compile out of the box but it is done in a way so you don't even realize babel is at work, it is seamlessly done in the background for a much nicer development experience.

Does they support minify, Tree-shaking, Dead-code-elimination? How about Node.js native dependencies?

Minification and Tree-Shaking are both out of scope of electron-forge currently but would not be too hard to add using the packager hooks provided by electron-packager. As for Native Modules we support all native modules and we also built electron-forge from the ground up with the intention of using both npm and yarn to develop Electron application so we also support yarn and npm throughout the entire development lifecycle.

Which one comes with less boilerplate?

Technically speaking electron-builder comes with less boilerplate (it comes with no boilerplate) as it is intended to be solely for building electron applications. Electron Forge on the other hand is intended to help you create them as well and therefore we provide ultra minimal boilerplating to help you get started. On average this is like 6 files

• package.json (with prefilled forge config)
• compilerc (for electron-compile)
• index.html (template HTML file)
• index.js (template main process file)
• eslintrc (for linting)
• maybe another file (react has app.jsx for instance)

It is designed to be ultra minimal and give you the minimum amount of required files to get you going on your Electron way 👍

Bonus Features

We also built electron-forge to be extensible in a real easy way. For instance anyone can publish electron-forge-template-[name] modules and use them as templates when making a new Electron application. Or people can publish electron-forge-maker-[name] to provide a new make target or even electron-forge-publisher-[name] to provide a new publish target. We also also passthrough your config directly to the hooks of the tools we use like electron-packager's lifecycle hooks.

Summary:

electron-forge was built to provide a wider scope than electron-builder ever intended to as it's goal is not just to build Electron application but to help you from the moment you create your app to the moment you want to publish it. Our main goal was to make a tool that used community packages that we already used and wire them up in an intuitive and easy to use way so that anyone could just jump right in to Electron development without having to worry about setting up build files and such.

I believe we achieved this goal when our commands are as simple as

npm i -g electron-forge
electron-forge init my-app

cd my-app
electron-forge make

[develar]

electron-builder 16.2.0 supports electron-forge and electron-compile.

You can use appimage, snap, nsis and nsis-web electron-builder targets in the electron-forge("win32": ["nsis"]). But it is not recommended, because electron-forge packaging and publishing is a far away in terms of quality / feature set from electron-builder.

Recommended to build electron-forge projects using electron-builder directly. Publishing, Auto Update and Code Signing supported only in this case (including all other useful packaging options like files).

As it was stated initially, electron-forge is not a competitor to electron-builder. If you are happy to use electron-forge to package/publish — your decision, in any case you still can use electron-builder targets. User requests to improve electron-builder integration with electron-forge (targets) will be not rejected as "just use electron-builder directly" without investigation.

I don't like situation that electron-forge decided to reinvent the wheel and users have to solve already solved and implemented issues (electron/forge#171, electron/forge#135), but it was already discussed. Up to user decide what to use to build. electron-forge maybe useful to create electron app and, so, electron-builder 16.2.0 supports electron-forge.