Rolldown
Hacker ApprovedShares rank 3 of 5 JavaScript bundlers by recommenders
A Rust-based JavaScript bundler that is a drop-in replacement for Rollup's API and plugins, and makes builds much faster, especially as the bundler behind Vite 8.
A Rust-based JavaScript bundler that is a drop-in replacement for Rollup's API and plugins, and makes builds much faster, especially as the bundler behind Vite 8.
13 people gave an opinion
- recommend it
- 13
- criticize it
- 0
- approval share
- 100%
Recommended in 8 of 13 months
- November 2025: not recommended
- December 2025: recommended
- January 2026: recommended
- February 2026: recommended
- March 2026: recommended
- April 2026: not recommended
- May 2026: recommended
- June 2026: recommended
- July 2026: recommended
- August 2026: not recommended
- September 2026: recommended
- October 2026: not recommended
- November 2026: not recommended (month in progress)
Why it carries the badge
- 13 people recommend itNeeds 10 or more, met.
- Nobody criticizes itNeeds 2 to 1 or better, met.
- Recommended in 8 of 13 monthsNeeds 4 or more, met.
The same three rules apply to every product, and the badge can’t be bought. How the badge works
What people say about it
The reasons people give, with the number of comments that give each one. Open a reason to read what they said.
Why people recommend it
Each mark is one comment
Much faster builds than before
“We've been running rolldown-vite on a mid-sized project for a few weeks now and the production builds went from ~35s to under 8s.”
Comment from 13 Mar 2026 in “Vite 8.0 Is Out” “It's a drop-in replacement for the most part, and slashed our built times down to 12%.”
Comment from 10 Jan 2026 in “The Performance Revolution in JavaScript Tooling” “it is much faster since it isn't written in JavaScript”
Comment from 2 Jul 2026 in “Vite+ Beta” - Comment from 18 Sep 2026 in “Show HN: OJ – A drop-in replacement for Vite in Rust”
Drop-in replacement, works with Rollup
“It's a drop-in replacement for the most part, and slashed our built times down to 12%.”
Comment from 10 Jan 2026 in “The Performance Revolution in JavaScript Tooling” “Rolldown is compatible to Rollup's API and can use most Rollup plugins”
Comment from 18 Feb 2026 in “Fastest Front End Tooling for Humans and AI” “the rolldown bundler in Vite 8 makes switching to plain Vite”
Comment from 13 Mar 2026 in “Vite 8.0 Is Out” Written in Rust, so fast
“it is much faster since it isn't written in JavaScript”
Comment from 2 Jul 2026 in “Vite+ Beta” “rolldown -> tsdown (ts support, but in rast and fast)”
Comment from 2 Jul 2026 in “Vite+ Beta” Powers Vite 8 and related tools
“Extremely happy user of Vite, Vitest, Rolldown, tsdown, Oxlint, and Oxfmt.”
Comment from 2 Jul 2026 in “Vite+ Beta” “the rolldown bundler in Vite 8 makes switching to plain Vite”
Comment from 13 Mar 2026 in “Vite 8.0 Is Out” “The main reason for this is rolldown”
Comment from 13 Mar 2026 in “Vite 8.0 Is Out”
What people warn about
Each mark is one comment
Some code may break in edge cases
“I'm certain this line[1] of code won't work in some cases”
Comment from 5 Dec 2025 in “Write ReactJS in Rust”
Other JavaScript bundlers people recommend
The four most recommended other JavaScript bundlers, with the same counts for each, so you can compare like for like. The tick on each bar marks the 2 to 1 line the badge needs.
See all 5 JavaScript bundlers, rankedWhat people said
11 of the 13 comments that mention it, newest first. Each links to the original comment.
“Vite 8 with rolldown is plenty fast”
“rolldown -> tsdown (ts support, but in rast and fast)”
“Extremely happy user of Vite, Vitest, Rolldown, tsdown, Oxlint, and Oxfmt.”
“it is much faster since it isn't written in JavaScript”
“it was the perfect timing to use it as well”
“the rolldown bundler in Vite 8 makes switching to plain Vite”
“We've been running rolldown-vite on a mid-sized project for a few weeks now and the production builds went from ~35s to under 8s.”
“The main reason for this is rolldown”
“Rolldown is compatible to Rollup's API and can use most Rollup plugins”
“It's a drop-in replacement for the most part, and slashed our built times down to 12%.”
“I'm certain this line[1] of code won't work in some cases”
Counts come from 1,795,640 Hacker News comments, November 2025 to November 2026. How we count. Report a mistake.