Comprehensive Performance Comparison of Popular JavaScript Monorepo Build Tools and Task Runners
This repository contains an extensive, unbiased performance benchmark comparing the most popular monorepo management tools in the JavaScript ecosystem: Nx, Turbo (Turborepo), Lerna, Lage, and Moon. Our benchmark focuses on real-world scenarios with cache restoration performance using a enterprise-scale codebase.
Our test repository simulates a medium-to-large enterprise monorepo with:
- 5 shared buildable libraries - Each containing 250 reusable components
- 5 Next.js applications - Each built from 20 app-specific libraries
- 100 total libraries - Each library contains 250 components
- ~26,000 total components - Representing realistic enterprise scale
This benchmark represents a medium-sized enterprise repository. Many organizations operate monorepos that are 10x larger than this test case, making performance differences even more critical at scale.
Nx is a powerful, extensible dev tool that helps you develop, test, build, and scale with React, Vue, Node, and more. Key features:
- Smart rebuilds with computation caching
- Distributed task execution across multiple machines
- Code generation and automated migrations
- Integrated tooling for testing, linting, and building
- Workspace analysis and visualization
Turborepo is a high-performance build system for JavaScript and TypeScript codebases. Features include:
- Remote caching for fast CI/CD pipelines
- Incremental bundling and building
- Task parallelization and dependency management
- Zero runtime overhead and minimal configuration
- Built in Rust for maximum performance
Lerna is a fast, modern build system for managing and publishing multiple JavaScript/TypeScript packages. Capabilities:
- Independent versioning of packages
- Automated publishing workflows
- Task caching powered by Nx
- Workspace management and linking
- Conventional commits integration
Lage is a task runner for JavaScript monorepos built by Microsoft. Features:
- Pipeline-based task execution
- Efficient caching mechanisms
- Parallel task processing
- TypeScript-first approach
- Integration with npm workspaces
Moon is a Rust-based build system and monorepo management tool focusing on performance and developer experience:
- Rust performance for maximum speed and efficiency
- Smart caching with advanced cache mechanisms and remote caching support
- Task pipeline with efficient orchestration and dependency management
- Multi-language support including Node.js, Python, Rust, and more
- YAML configuration with intelligent defaults
- Incremental building - only builds what's changed for faster development cycles
Run pnpm run benchmark. The benchmark will warm the cache of all the tools. We benchmark how quickly
Turbo/Nx/Lerna/Lage/Moon can figure out what needs to be restored from the cache and restores it.
These are the numbers using GitHub Actions runner:
- average lage time is: 11830.6
- average turbo time is: 9992.2
- average lerna (powered by nx) time is: 3407.0
- average moon time is: TBD (pending benchmark)
- average nx time is: 1849.4
- nx is 6.4x faster than lage
- nx is 5.4x faster than turbo
- nx is 1.8x faster than lerna (powered by nx)
- nx vs moon performance comparison: TBD
The benchmark measures cache restoration performance - how quickly each tool can:
- Analyze dependencies and determine what needs to be rebuilt
- Restore cached artifacts from previous builds
- Skip unnecessary work and maximize development velocity
For small to medium repositories, the performance differences may be acceptable across all tools. However, the true performance benefits emerge when:
- Scaling to larger codebases (10x+ the size of this benchmark)
- Implementing distributed builds across multiple machines
- Optimizing CI/CD pipeline performance for faster deployments
- Improving developer experience with faster local builds
A critical but often overlooked aspect of monorepo tools is preserving the native development experience:
Test the difference yourself:
- Run:
nx build crew --skip-nx-cache - Compare with:
turbo run build --scope=crew --force
This repository implements comprehensive automated benchmarking to track performance trends:
Automation Features:
- Daily benchmarks at 6 AM UTC via GitHub Actions
- Automatic dependency updates to latest tool versions
- Performance regression detection (alerts for >10% performance changes)
- Automated README updates with latest benchmark results
- GitHub releases with version-tagged performance data
- Issue creation for significant performance regressions
Each benchmark automatically creates GitHub releases for historical tracking:
- Semantic versioning includes all tool versions (e.g.,
benchmark-nx21.0.3-turbo2.5.3-lerna8.2.2-lage2.14.6) - Comprehensive release notes with detailed performance results and raw data
- Historical comparison across different tool versions
- Automatic updates for existing releases with same tool versions
Results are automatically analyzed for:
- Significant changes detection (>5% performance variance)
- Regression alerts for performance degradation
- Tool comparison updates with relative performance ratios
- Long-term trend tracking across tool versions
# Standard benchmark with console output
pnpm run benchmark
# JSON output for automation and analysis
pnpm run benchmark:json
# TypeScript development mode (direct execution)
pnpm run benchmark:json:tsAll automation scripts use TypeScript for enhanced developer experience:
Development Commands:
# Direct TypeScript execution
pnpm run benchmark:json:ts # Run benchmark
pnpm run test:automation:ts # Run test suite
pnpm run compare:results:ts # Compare results
pnpm run create:release:ts # Generate releases
# Compilation and build
pnpm run build:scripts # Compile to JavaScript
pnpm run build:scripts:watch # Watch mode compilationScript Architecture:
scripts/benchmark-json.ts- Main benchmark execution with strict typingscripts/compare-and-update-readme.ts- Result analysis and README updatesscripts/create-release.ts- GitHub release generation with version taggingscripts/test-compare.ts- Comprehensive test suite for automationscripts/types.ts- Shared TypeScript interfaces and type definitions
All monorepo tools are configured independently and do not interfere with each other:
- Each tool can be removed without affecting others
- Configurations are optimized for fair comparison
- Setup favors scenarios where each tool should perform well
- Package Manager: pnpm for optimal performance
- Automated Updates: Dependabot + daily workflow for latest versions
- Compatibility Testing: Benchmarks run after updates to ensure stability
This benchmark aims to be completely fair and unbiased. If you discover:
- Configuration issues that disadvantage any tool
- Edge cases that don't represent realistic usage
- Setup problems that affect benchmark accuracy
- Missing optimizations for any tool
Please submit a Pull Request! Our goal is accurate, representative benchmarking that helps the community make informed decisions.
We've specifically chosen:
- Next.js applications (favorable for Turborepo)
- Cache restoration scenarios (core strength of all tools)
- No incremental builds
- Realistic enterprise scale (26k components)
This ensures a fair comparison focused on each tool's core caching capabilities.
This benchmark provides objective performance data to help teams choose the right monorepo tool for their needs. Consider:
- Repository scale - larger codebases amplify performance differences
- Team requirements - distributed builds, DX, ecosystem integration
- Tool maturity - community support, documentation, plugin ecosystem
- Long-term strategy - migration paths, vendor support, development roadmap
Performance is just one factor in selecting monorepo tooling. Evaluate based on your team's specific requirements, existing infrastructure, and long-term architectural goals.
Keywords: monorepo tools, JavaScript build systems, Nx vs Turbo, build tool performance, cache restoration benchmark, enterprise monorepo, TypeScript build tools, CI/CD optimization, developer experience