Introduction
Skypack is a JavaScript Delivery Network for modern web apps
What’s old is new again
Skypack is the world’s first CDN designed and optimized for modern JavaScript applications. To use it, just use a Skypack URL whenever you want to load a package:
Loading JavaScript from a third-party CDN isn't a groundbreaking concept. In the past, it was even recommended to load popular libraries like jQuery from a public CDN like Skypack to take advantage of shared caching across sites. As more and more sites join, cache hits become more likely, making all connected sites load faster as a result. Win win!
But JavaScript CDNs of the past don't integrate well with modern web development. Developers today expect clear dependency management and explicit dependency loading via import statements. Older CDNs required lots, and lots (and lots) of <script> tags that had to be loaded in a magically-correct (and sometimes hard to understand) order.
Now that all modern browsers support ES Modules (import statements), we can load our favorite libraries from a CDN directly in our code, without the round-about <script> tags and confusing window.React references.
With Skypack you can build a fast, modern web site or application without ever touching a single build tool or line of bundler configuration.
Skypack vs. Traditional CDNs
Skypack is designed to help you build a faster site with less effort. Skypack brings you best-in-class production performance features like:
HTTP/2 & HTTP/3 Support
Brotli Compression
Global CDN Speeds
Optimized Cache Headers
But that's not all. We've also designed Skypack to connect directly into production website and web applications. This brings some major benefits over your traditional public JavaScript CDN:
A reliable URL for every package
Skypack doesn't force you to consult a README every time you load a package to figure out the correct file to reference. Every package, regardless of how it was written, is served from Skypack using a consistent URL API: https://cdn.skypack.dev/PACKAGE_NAME
Want the minified version? Add a ?min param for automatic minification.
More packages supported, less code served
Traditional CDNs usually only serve single, static JavaScript files. This forces complex packages like React & React-DOM to manually bundle all of their code into a single file that the CDN can host, resulting in more code overall. Few packages do this extra work for you, resulting in a hit-or-miss story for users.
Any package that runs on the web can run on Skypack, with zero extra effort from the package authors. When a package does reference another module (e.g. the way react-dom references react) Skypack will automatically resolve that reference to a common, shared URL resulting in less code served as a result.
Faster code for modern browsers
A huge problem facing JavaScript developers today is the over-transpilation and over-polyfilling of most applications, resulting in unnecessary code bloat and slower sites. Most JavaScript CDNs have to serve one file to all users, so modern browsers get stuck with the backwards-compatible bloat that they don't even need.
Skypack is the first CDN to automatically address this problem by skipping unnecessary compilation & polyfilling for modern browsers. When a user visits your site with a modern, up-to-date browser they'll get a smaller, faster JavaScript response optimized for their exact browser.
Production-ready guarantees
Skypack was specifically designed to connect with production websites, and we guarantee stability & security fit for production websites to serve millions of users. Few, (if any) public CDNs offer these same production guarantees.
Custom domains & subdomains
SLAs for guaranteed uptime
Pinned URLs guarantee that your code won't change over time
Get Started
This is a broad overview of Skypack: it’s a build-time optimization that serves your site faster by taking over serving all your npm dependencies. Head to the next section, Getting Started, to start kicking the tires.
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