Back in 2014, JavaScript tooling looked very different. ES6 was coming, but most developers were stuck writing code with Babel and shipping it inside huge Browserify bundles. Something had to change.
And that’s where Rollup came in.
1. Bloated bundles
Browserify was great but it shipped way too much code to the user. Developer pain was real, mobile loads were slow, and web performance suffered.
That’s when Rich Harris, the creator of Rollup, decided enough was enough.
“Browserify’s output ballooned in size. I knew there had to be a better way.”
This felt like a turning point: what if ES6 modules could be used not just for syntax, but for smarter bundling?
2. ES6 modules: the building blocks
At the time, browsers didn’t fully support ES6 modules but the spec offered a real structure: imports and exports could be tracked and optimised.
The idea was simple: why not use ES6 modules to build smaller, more efficient bundles?
And so Rollup was born: a bundler built around modularity, clarity and precision.
3. A library-first philosophy
Unlike Webpack which focused on entire apps, Rollup targeted libraries: clean outputs, no extra boilerplate, just efficient logic.
It was razor-focused:
- No complex plugin chains or configs
- Pure ES6 import/exports
- Perfect for small, shareable building blocks
That simplicity helped Vue, D3, and many other projects adopt Rollup early on.
4. Growth through gradual evolution
Rollup didn’t explode overnight but it evolved, eventually adding code splitting, improved load performance and stepped aside to let Vite use it in dev server mode.
Today, Rollup quietly powers many popular libraries and tools, influencing how modern JavaScript is shipped and consumed.
Want to know more? Watch Rich Harris tell the story here
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