Rsbuild 2.0: Faster Bundling, ESM-First, and Node 20 Support for Modern Web Development

Rsbuild 2.0 has been officially released as a modern build tool for web applications, powered by Rspack 2.0 and designed to deliver faster builds, optimized production output, and a streamlined developer experience.

The release marks a significant update to the Rsbuild ecosystem, which includes tools such as Rslib, Rstest, Rspress, and Storybook Rsbuild, all of which have been upgraded to version 2.0 and are now running stably in production.

Rsbuild 2.0 is a pure ESM package with updated default targets for ESM Node.js output, reflecting a shift toward modern JavaScript standards and improved Node.js support.

The tool reduces dependencies and adopts safer defaults, including a changed default host and upgraded proxy middleware, contributing to a lighter weight and more secure development environment by default.

Rsbuild 2.0 introduces React Server Components support, enhances dev server and client communication, allows extending the built-in server, and adds custom logger support for greater flexibility in development workflows.

Configuration for chunk splitting has been made easier, and the create-rsbuild template has been updated to align with the new version’s features and best practices.

Built on Rspack 2.0, Rsbuild benefits from faster builds, new output optimization capabilities, and improvements in incremental builds, lazy compilation, persistent cache, and barrel file optimization.

Rspack 2.0, which powers Rsbuild 2.0, has seen weekly downloads grow from 100,000 at its 1.0 release in August 2024 to 5 million, reflecting increasing adoption across the JavaScript ecosystem.

Rspack is now supported by a growing number of tools and frameworks, including Angular, Docusaurus, Meteor, Next.js, Nuxt, Nx, Storybook, TanStack Router, and Modern.js, among others, underscoring its integration into broader development toolchains.

The Rstack ecosystem, centered on Rspack, provides a unified JavaScript toolchain with consistent architecture and high performance, aiming to make web development simpler, more consistent, and more efficient.