Finding the right NPM packages has become both crucial and challenging. Fortunately, a suite of online tools has emerged to assist professionals in this quest, simplifying the process of discovering and selecting the perfect packages for their projects.

The abundance of NPM packages offers incredible potential, but it also presents a dilemma: choosing the wrong package can have serious consequences for a project's performance, security, and scalability.
Whether you're a seasoned developer or just starting out, these tools serve as indispensable resources, empowering you to make informed decisions and navigate the NPM ecosystem with confidence and precision.

🔴 https://npmcompare.com/ - gives you a nice comparison over the parameters about the number of maintainers, number of dependencies, number of downloads per day/month, last release date and much more;

🔴 https://bundlephobia.com/ - estimate a footprint, basically how many Kb will be added to your bundle when you add this dependency to your project. Those may differ a lot, try comparing say - dayjs vs momentjs ;

🔴 https://lnkd.in/dN9UiYwt - online tool by snyk.io, checks the packages with versions that are used in your project dependencies - if they have known vulnerabilities or unfixed security problems;

You can use those tools before doing npm install xxx and in 5 mins you’ll be able to make an informed decision. The solution perhaps will be a compromise between a popular API and a well-supported code base.

Enjoy, and hope your DX stays🔺 and the size of the bundle stays🔻

Follow or friend me on LinkedIn - I am former full-time frontend developer turned team lead with over 13yrs xp, writing about industry topics

Pic from Bytes, great mailing list by ui.dev

Other important tools that you use daily - that I have missed ? Please add them in the comments 🙏