To save time and avoid human errors, automation tools are great. These tools help the user to work faster with better results. Gulp and Grunt are two of the most popular automation tools in recent times. Both use the coding of Node and are building blocks in a system. Their work is also quite similar. Basically, both tools help to automate functions. In some aspects, they are quite different from each other. Let us learn about the differences in this article.
What is Gulp?
Gulp is an automation tool that automates processes and runs repetitive tasks in an efficient manner. It was developed in 2013 by Eric Schoffstall. It is written in JavaScript and is compatible with Windows, MacOS, and Linux. It is used in front-end development as a streaming build system and is a command-line task runner for Node.js
Features
- It uses JavaScript code.
- It provides concatenation options and it becomes very easy to combine multiple JavaScript files.
- Compiling SASS files to CSS is easy.
Advantages
- It has a faster speed as it uses streams and handles tasks in memory.
- In Gulp, it is easy to understand the code.
- Plugins are created easily in Gulp as it uses single-purpose plugins.
Disadvantages
- If someone is more interested in Configuring the files, then Gulp is not so great option for them.
- The updates are fewer in this tool.
What is Grunt?
Grunt is an automation tool that can automate repetitive tasks in a workflow and it can be used as a command line tool for JavaScript. It was created in 2012 by Ben Alman. It is also written in JavaScript and is compatible with Windows, MacOS, and Linux. Grunt has thousands of plugins to choose from, you can use Grunt to automate just about anything with a minimum of effort.
Features
- It makes the workflow easy for the user.
- It is quite flexible and is a widely used automation tool.
- It has over 6000 plugins available.
Advantages
- As it contains less infrastructure, one can easily work with a new code.
- It has built-in functions that further extend the functionality of plugins and scripts.
- It has huge community support.
Disadvantages
- APIs are not so great in Grunt.
- Plugins are a little difficult to create in Grunt.
- It is slower than the speed of Gulp because it saves temporary files within it every time when a file is run through a plugin, which eventually decreases the speed.
Difference between Gulp and Grunt
|
Gulp |
Grunt |
|
|---|---|---|
| Developed | It was developed in 2013. | It was created in 2012. |
| APIs | APIs are great in Gulp. | APIs are not great in Grunt when compared with Gulp. |
| Ease-of-Use | Gulp is easy to use. | Grunt is difficult to use as compared with Gulp. |
| Format | Its source data is JavaScript. | Its source data is JSON. |
| Task Management | It performs multiple tasks simultaneously. | It performs tasks one by one. |
| Code | The code in it is easy to read. | The code in it is easy to write. |
| Plugins | Plugins are created more easily in Gulp than Grunt because of the use of single-purpose plugins. | Plugins are a little more difficult to create in Grunt than in Gulp because Grunt uses node JS streams. |
| Configuration Files | Configuring the files takes less time and is easy in Gulp as JavaScript is used to write the codes. | Configuring files may take a longer time than configuring the files in Gulp. |
| Community Support | It has a huge community support but still less than the support for Grunt. | It has huge community support. |
| Speed | It is faster as it uses streams and handles tasks in memory. | It is slower than the speed of Gulp because it saves temporary files within it every time when a file is run through a plugin, which eventually decreases the speed. |
| Usage of Files | The files which are stored in memory is used by Gulp. | The temporary files of Grunt are used to work in the system. |
| Updates | The updates are fewer in this tool as compared with Grunt. | New updates are regularly shown to the customers. |
| Dependencies | It is able to set up task dependencies. | It is unable to set up task dependencies. |
Conclusion
If one is working with a large team then Grunt is a good option to opt for. The answer to choosing between these two automation tools is simple. If one is interested in coding, then go for Gulp and if one is interested in configuration, then choose Grunt. After all, it all depends on the user’s requirements.