If you’ve been writing JavaScript for any length of time, you’ve probably had opinions about package managers. Everyone has used npm because it’s the default. Maybe you switched to Yarn back in 2016 and haven’t looked back. These days, there are better options.

That may seem like a bold statement, but bear with me. This article is a mix of opinions and facts. The package manager landscape has changed quite a bit in the last decade, and it’s worth exploring. Let’s break it down.

NPM: The Default Everyone Knows

npm is the package manager that ships with Node. It works. Everyone knows it. Node modules are straightforward to reason about, and security has been improving over the years.

But npm has historically struggled with performance. That’s partly a design problem, it was so widely adopted that making fundamental speed improvements meant risking breakage for the massive ecosystem already depending on it. When you’re supporting millions of packages, you need to be careful in managing backward compatibility breaks, making optimization a lot harder.

This performance gap is exactly what opened the door for alternatives.

Yarn: The Pioneer That Over-Optimized

Yarn showed up in 2016, created by Facebook, and it genuinely pushed the ecosystem forward. It parallelized downloads, introduced offline caching, and most notably, introduced lock files to JavaScript. npm eventually adopted lock files too, so Yarn’s influence on the broader ecosystem is undeniable.

Lock files did exist for other languages before 2016, such as Ruby and PHP, but Yarn was the first JavaScript package manager to include it.

The problem came with Yarn 2. It’s a classic case of over-optimization.

Yarn 2 introduced Plug’n’Play mode, which replaces your node_modules folder with zip files. We’re on Yarn 4 now, and while you can swap between modes, if you’re in the zip mode it becomes genuinely painful to inspect the actual JavaScript code you’re installing. You have to unzip things, dig through archives, and it just adds friction where there shouldn’t be any.

If you enjoy making JavaScript development harder than it needs to be, Yarn’s PnP mode has you covered. It’s your Toxic coworkers favorite tool.

PNPM: The Clear Upgrade

If you look at the benchmarks, pnpm wins in almost every common scenario. Running install with a warm cache, lock file, and existing node modules? Faster than npm. A clean install with nothing cached? 7 seconds versus 30 seconds. That’s not a marginal improvement.

Speed isn’t even the best part. pnpm uses hard links from a centralized store instead of copying packages into every project’s node_modules. Depending on the size of your projects, you can save up to 70% of your disk space compared to npm. If you’re working on multiple JavaScript projects (and who isn’t?), that adds up fast.

pnpm also handles the node_modules structure in a way that’s strict by default, which means your code can’t accidentally import packages you haven’t explicitly declared as dependencies. It catches bugs that npm would let slide.

So pnpm is the clear winner, right? Well, there’s one more contender we haven’t talked about yet.

Bun: The Speed Demon

Bun was released in 2023, and noticeably faster than pnpm.

The reason comes down to architecture. pnpm is written in TypeScript and runs on Node, which means every time you run pnpm install, your computer has to start the V8 engine, load all the JavaScript, compile it, and then ask the operating system to do the actual work. That’s a lot of overhead.

Bun is a compiled binary written in Zig. It talks directly to your kernel, no middleman, no V8 engine slowing down every tiny decision. On top of that, Bun is hyper-focused on optimizing system calls. Instead of doing file operations one at a time (open file A, write file A, close file A, repeat a thousand times), it aggressively batches them together. The result is speed improvements not just in disk operations but in everything it does.

Earlier versions of Bun had an annoying quirk similar to Yarn, it used a binary lock file that was difficult to manually audit. That’s been fixed. Bun now uses a readable lock file, which removes the biggest objection people had.

Which begs the question… ?

So Why Isn’t Everyone Using Bun?

The short answer: it’s complicated. Bun isn’t just a package manager, it also replaces Node as your runtime. If you’re using Bun as your runtime, using it as your package manager makes total sense. Everything fits together.

But most teams are still on Node. And when you’re on Node, pnpm is the clearer choice for everyone involved. A new developer joining your team sees pnpm and immediately knows, “Oh, this is a JavaScript project, I know how this works.” Bun as a package manager on top of Node adds a layer of “wait, why are we using this?” that you have to explain.

Maybe that changes in the future as Bun’s runtime adoption grows. I’m sure the Bun team is working hard to make that transition as smooth as possible. But the reality right now is that most JavaScript projects are running on Node.

My Recommendation

If you’re starting a new project or looking to switch:

• Using Bun as your runtime? Use Bun for package management too. It’s the fastest option and everything integrates cleanly.
• On Node (most of us)? Use pnpm. It’s faster than npm, saves disk space, and is strict in ways that catch real bugs. Your team will thank you.
• Still on npm? You’re not doing anything wrong, but you’re leaving performance and disk space on the table for no real benefit.
• On Yarn PnP? I have questions, but I respect your commitment.

The JavaScript ecosystem moves fast, and if you haven’t revisited your package manager choice in a while, it might be worth running a quick benchmark on your own project. The numbers might surprise you.