You Still Don’t Understand the Differences Between npm, yarn, pnpm, and bun?!

Introduction

In modern development, developers often work on multiple projects simultaneously, leading to increasingly bloated dependency installations. Slow installation speeds and occasional failures make understanding package managers crucial. While there are several options, the most prominent are ​npm, ​yarn, ​pnpm, and the newer ​bun.

Phantom Dependency

A core challenge in dependency management is ​Phantom Dependency:

​Scenario:

Package A → B@1.0.0 → C@2.0.0

Package D → C@3.0.0

Issue: Different versions of C may nest in sub-dependency trees, creating deep paths in `node_modules` and potential version conflicts.

Package Managers Deep Dive

1. ​npm (Node Package Manager)

Overview:

npm is Node.js' default package manager, originally developed by the Node.js community and bundled with Node.js. It remains the most widely used tool.

From npm v2 to v7+, npm evolved from recursive dependency installation (resulting in deeply nested trees) to flat dependency management, partially resolving nesting…