Mind that age! This blog post is 9 years old! Most likely, its content is outdated. Especially if it's technical.

On Kwissle I'm using Google Closure Compiler to minify all Javascript files. It's fine but because it's java and because I'm running this on a struggling EC2 micro instance the CPU goes up to 99% for about 10 seconds when it does the closure compilation. Sucks!

So, I threw UglifyJS into the mix and instead of replacing the Closure compiler I added it so it runs alongside but I obviously only keep one of the outputs.

Here is the log output when I run it on my MacbookPro:

MAKING ./static/js/account.js UglifyJS took 0.0866 seconds to compress 3066 bytes into 1304 (42.5%) Closure took 1.2365 seconds to compress 3066 bytes into 1225 (40.0%) MAKING ./static/js/ext/jquery.cookie.js UglifyJS took 0.0843 seconds to compress 3655 bytes into 3009 (82.3%) Closure took 1.3472 seconds to compress 3655 bytes into 4086 (111.8%) MAKING ./static/js/ext/jquery.tipsy.js UglifyJS took 0.1029 seconds to compress 7527 bytes into 3581 (47.6%) Closure took 1.3062 seconds to compress 7527 bytes into 3425 (45.5%) MAKING ./static/js/maxlength_countdown.js UglifyJS took 0.082 seconds to compress 1502 bytes into 1033 (68.8%) Closure took 1.2159 seconds to compress 1502 bytes into 853 (56.8%) MAKING ./static/js/ext/socket.io-0.6.3.js UglifyJS took 0.299 seconds to compress 76870 bytes into 30787 (40.1%) Closure took 2.4817 seconds to compress 76870 bytes into 30628 (39.8%) MAKING ./static/js/scoreboard.js UglifyJS took 0.084 seconds to compress 2768 bytes into 1239 (44.8%) Closure took 1.2512 seconds to compress 2768 bytes into 1167 (42.2%) MAKING ./static/js/rumbler.js UglifyJS took 0.0872 seconds to compress 3087 bytes into 1384 (44.8%) Closure took 1.2587 seconds to compress 3087 bytes into 1235 (40.0%) MAKING ./static/js/ext/shortcut.js UglifyJS took 0.0987 seconds to compress 5796 bytes into 2537 (43.8%) Closure took 1.3231 seconds to compress 5796 bytes into 2410 (41.6%) MAKING ./static/js/play.js UglifyJS took 0.1483 seconds to compress 18473 bytes into 10592 (57.3%) Closure took 1.4497 seconds to compress 18473 bytes into 10703 (57.9%) MAKING ./static/js/playsound.js UglifyJS took 0.0824 seconds to compress 1205 bytes into 869 (72.1%) Closure took 1.2335 seconds to compress 1205 bytes into 873 (72.4%)

(Note here that for the file ./static/js/ext/jquery.cookie.js Closure failed and when it fails it leaves the code as is and prepends it with a copy about the error from the stdout. that's why it's greater than 100% on that file)

Here are the averages of those numbers:

AVERAGE TIME: (lower is better) * UglifyJS: 0.11554 seconds * Closure: 1.41037 seconds AVERAGE REDUCTION: (higher is better) * UglifyJS: 45.6% * Closure: 51.5%

(I'm skipping the file that Closure failed to minify)

So, what does that mean in bytes? These are the source Javascript files for two pages but the total is 123949.0 bytes. With Closure that saves me 63833.7 bytes (62 kbytes) whereas UglifyJS only saves me 57760.2 bytes (56 kbytes) of bandwidth.

Discussion...

The fact that Closure fails on one file is a real bummer. I'm not even using the advanced options here.

UglifyJS doesn't save as many bytes as Closure does. This is potentially important because after all, minification process happens only once per revision of the original file but might be served hundreds or millions of times.

Because I run my minifications on-the-fly it does matter to me that UglifyJS is 1220% faster.

It's rare but I have observed twice that the minified Javascript from Closure has actually broken my code. I default to suspect that's my fault for not making the code "minifyable" enough (e.g. too many global variables).

I've just noticed that I'm relying on files that almost never change (e.g. jquery.tipsy.js ). I might as well create a ...min.js versions of them and add them to the repository.

In conclusion...

Because of the convenience of UglifyJS being so much faster and that it doesn't choke on that jquery.cookie.js file I'm going switch to UglifyJS for the moment. The remaining bytes that I don't save become insignificant if you add the gzip effect and compared to images the bandwidth total is quite insignificant.

UPDATE (JAN 2016)

I wrote a follow-up post comparing UglifyJS2 with Closure Compiler with the advanced option.

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