It's 2025. Stop Doing `npm install` and `require()`

By now, if you’re still writing require() and blindly running npm install, you’re not just stuck in the past — you’re actively slowing down your team, bloating your apps, and missing out on the modern JavaScript ecosystem.

🚨 The Legacy Baggage: npm install and require() #

Let’s be honest: For years, npm install and require() were staples of every JavaScript project. They powered the Node.js revolution and made package management and module loading easy (ish) in an otherwise chaotic ecosystem.

But it’s 2025. You’re building on a vastly more mature platform, and we’ve learned a few things:

• require() is CommonJS, and that’s not what the browser wants.
• npm install pulls in gigabytes of often-unused code, silently accumulating tech debt.
• Node-style module resolution makes bundling and tree-shaking harder.
• Tooling has moved on — you haven’t.

✅ What You Should Be Doing Instead #

1. Use ECMAScript Modules (ESM) — Not require() #

// ❌ Old and busted
const express = require('express');

// ✅ New hotness
import express from 'express';

ES Modules are:

• Native to the browser
• Fully supported in Node.js (since v14+ LTS)
• Statically analyzable (better for bundlers and type checkers)
• A must if you’re building anything meant for the modern frontend

If you’re still using require(), you’re fighting the ecosystem.

2. Use bun, pnpm, or yarn Workspaces — Not Vanilla npm #

npm install is fine for toy apps. But in real projects?

• bun install is lightning fast and uses native code.
• pnpm enforces real dependency deduplication and better monorepo workflows.
• yarn with workspaces still holds strong for large codebases.

npm is still improving, but it’s not the best choice anymore if performance, determinism, and disk usage matter.

3. Use Native URL Imports and CDNs (Where It Makes Sense) #

You no longer have to install everything locally. For frontend projects:

// In modern browsers or Deno
import React from 'https://esm.sh/react';

This works:

• With zero install step
• Great for demos, prototyping, serverless, and edge environments
• Pairs perfectly with tools like Deno, Bun, and even some Vite setups

No more node_modules. No more package.json bloat. Just use what you need.

4. Know When to Ditch the Build Step Entirely #

It’s 2025. You can write native ESM, import URLs, and deploy instantly. If your app has no need for JSX, TypeScript, or SCSS, you might not even need a bundler.

Tools like:

• Deno
• Bun
• Vite (with ESBuild under the hood)
• Cloudflare Workers / Vercel Edge Functions

…let you skip the heavy lifting and get to production faster, with better performance.

🧨 Still Using CommonJS? You’re Breaking the Ecosystem #

The longer you hold on to CommonJS and manual installs, the harder it is to:

• Interop with modern libraries
• Optimize performance
• Run code at the edge
• Ship to browser-native environments

Modern tooling is ESM-first, tree-shakeable, and optimized for speed. Holding on to require() and npm install is like writing jQuery plugins in a React world.

👊 TL;DR — Stop Doing This: #

npm install lodash

const _ = require('lodash');

✅ Do This Instead: #

bun add lodash  # or pnpm add lodash

import _ from 'lodash';

Or better yet, don’t add it at all — just use native APIs or URL imports if you’re targeting the browser.

Final Thought #

It’s 2025. We’re building apps that run at the edge, deploy in milliseconds, and expect instant load times. We don’t have time for 500MB node_modules folders, or module systems designed in 2010.

Use ESM. Use smarter package managers. Move forward.

Your future self — and your CI/CD pipeline — will thank you.