SWC

SWC is a Rust-based JavaScript/TypeScript compiler that's 20x faster than Babel on a single thread and 70x faster on four cores. If you're still using Babel to transpile your code, SWC is the free performance upgrade you didn't know you needed. Next.js, Parcel, and Deno already use it under the hood.

For indie hackers building with Next.js — you're already using SWC. For everyone else, if your build times are painful and you're running Babel, switch. esbuild (written in Go) is in the same speed tier but focused on bundling. Babel still matters for exotic plugins but is painfully slow by comparison.

The catch: SWC's plugin system uses WASM, which limits what plugins can do compared to Babel's rich AST manipulation ecosystem. If you depend on a specific Babel plugin with no SWC equivalent, you might be stuck. And while SWC now bundles and minifies, those features are less mature than its core compilation.