es-toolkit vs lodash: Up to 97% Smaller Bundle and 2‑3× Faster Performance

Introduction

es-toolkit is a modern JavaScript utility library that emphasizes small bundle size and high performance, providing strong TypeScript typings.

Tool URL: https://es-toolkit.slash.page/ Repository: https://github.com/toss/es-toolkit

Highlights and Features

Provides everyday utility functions such as debounce, delay, chunk, sum, and pick.

Designed for performance; runtime speed is 2‑3× faster than comparable libraries in modern JavaScript environments.

Reduces JavaScript code size by up to 97% compared with alternatives.

Built‑in TypeScript support with powerful type guards like isNotNil.

Achieves 100% test coverage to ensure reliability.

Core Functions

Array utilities: uniq, difference.

Function utilities: debounce, throttle.

Math utilities: sum, round.

Object utilities: pick, omit.

Predicate utilities: type‑guard functions such as isNotNil.

Promise utilities: delay.

String utilities: snakeCase.

Installation

es-toolkit can be installed via several package managers:

Node.js (>=18): npm install es-toolkit Deno (via JSR, package name differs): deno add @es-toolkit/es-toolkit Bun:

bun add es-toolkit

Usage Example

// import from 'es-toolkit'
import { debounce, chunk } from "es-toolkit";

const debouncedLog = debounce(message => {
  console.log(message);
}, 300);

debouncedLog("Hello, world!");

const array = [1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6];
const chunkedArray = chunk(array, 2);
console.log(chunkedArray); // [[1,2],[3,4],[5,6]]

Bundle Size

Compared with lodash and similar libraries, es-toolkit reduces bundle size by roughly 97%; some functions are under 100 bytes. Detailed size comparison is shown in the figure below.

Performance

Benchmarks on a MacBook Pro 14‑inch (M1 Max, 2021) show that es-toolkit’s average performance is about twice that of lodash, with some functions achieving up to an 11‑fold speedup.