Snowpack is an interesting new entrant in the field of JavaScript build tools. The key improvement over other solutions is that Snowpack makes it possible to build applications with modern frameworks such as React.js, Vue.js, and Angular without the need for a bundler. Cutting out the bundling step dramatically improves the feedback cycle during development because changes become available in the browser almost immediately. For this magic to work, Snowpack transforms the dependencies in node_modules
into single JavaScript files in a new web_modules
directory, from where they can be imported as an ECMAScript module (ESM). For IE11 and other browsers that don't support ESM, a workaround is available. Unfortunately, because no browser today can import CSS from JavaScript, using CSS modules is not straightforward.