Mastering Monorepos Part 1: Pros, Cons, Top Solutions

Monorepos have become a hot topic in the software development community, revolutionizing the way teams manage their codebases. Let's dive into the pros and cons and explore some popular solutions!

Pros

1. Code Sharing: Monorepos enable seamless code sharing across projects.

2. Consistent Builds: Centralized configuration ensures consistent builds.

3. Easier Refactoring: Changes across projects are easier to manage.

4. Atomic Commits: Facilitates atomic commits, enhancing version control.

5. Streamlined CI/CD: Unified pipelines simplify continuous integration and deployment.

6. Unified Builds: Don't build the same thing more than once.

Cons

1. Learning Curve: Adopting monorepos may require a learning curve.

2. Increased Repository Size: Larger repositories may impact cloning and storage.

3. Tooling Complexity: Managing monorepos often involves sophisticated tooling.

4. Dependency Management: Dependencies can be challenging to handle.

5. Risk of Coupling: Close relationships between projects may lead to tight coupling.

Monorepo Solutions

1. Bazel: Focuses on build and test automation for large, multi-language projects from Google.

2. Lage: A modern and extensible monorepo build system for TypeScript projects.

3. Moon: Designed for simplicity and scalability, making monorepo management a breeze.

4. NX: Ideal for teams working with Angular, React, and Node.js. NX provides powerful tooling, extensibility, and integration with popular frameworks.

5. Pants: A scalable and flexible build system for monorepos, supporting multiple languages.

6. Rush: Developed by Microsoft, designed for TypeScript projects.

7. TurboRepo: Known for its efficient handling of codebases, TurboRepo offers optimization benefits in large-scale projects.

Highlighting NX and TurboRepo

🚀 NX: Ideal for teams working with Angular, React, and Node.js. NX provides powerful tooling, extensibility, and integration with popular frameworks. Its focus on developer experience and comprehensive toolset makes it a solid choice for managing monorepos of various sizes.

🔍 TurboRepo: Recognized for its efficient management of codebases, TurboRepo offers optimization features for handling large projects effectively. TurboRepo stands out for its simplicity and ease, especially if you're in the Vercel ecosystem. 💻

We at Phoenix HQ chose Nx as our monorepo solution (in the integrated style), along with eslint/tsconfig setup w/ NextJS, and it has proved to be gamechanging. I've continue to use Turborepo in some personal projects, they only support the package-based approach afaik, and it is super convenient to set up and use.

In a part 2 of this series, I'd compare Nx and Turborepo, going into more detail on how the package-based and integrated styles differ, how it impacts development.

Useful links:

1. Learn more about monorepos on monorepo.tools.

2. Check out nx.dev and turbo.build.