Micro is not very "lightweight"

[styfle]

In the readme it says "micro" and "lightweight", but doesn't say what the installed size is. So I went ahead and did my own tests.

mkdir micro-example
cd micro-example
npm init -y
npm install --save micro
du -sh node_modules

This shows 9.2M for micro@7.3.2 and all it's dependencies.

Now lets try with the popular express framework.

mkdir express-example
cd express-example
npm init -y
npm install --save express
du -sh node_modules

This shows 1.8M for express@4.15.2 and all it's dependencies.

I also repeated the same steps for koa@2.2.0 (2M) and hapi@16.1.1 (1.3M) which are also popular web frameworks.

That means micro is the largest of the frameworks one might use to make microservices.

Is this expected?

[leo]

micro is not just a framework, but also comes with a development CLI (express and koa don't, I don't know hapi). But yes, we're already working on splitting it out!

[styfle]

we're already working on splitting it out!

Splitting what out?

[leo]

The development CLI... 😄

[albinekb]

The code running is a lot less than express / koa, who cares about installed space in 2017?

[leo]

@albinekb Yea, that's my opinion. But sadly, a bigger package also means longer installation times in production (which makes deployments slow).

[styfle]

@albinekb My assumption is that micro was designed for implementing microservices.

If you add micro as a dependency to a 1000MB mono-repo, then it's only a 1% increase.

If you add micro as a dependency to 500 individual microservices, that's a 5000MB (5GB) increase in size.

[austinfrey]

I'm getting 17mb now. @leo what's the status of splitting out the cli?

[timneutkens]

@aafrey #260

[austinfrey]

@timneutkens thanks! what are you using to measure package size? the printout looks really nice!

[timneutkens]

@aafrey this one https://github.com/siddharthkp/cost-of-modules

[austinfrey]

thanks!

[leo]

Very close!

[tim-phillips]

The split happened:

https://zeit.co/blog/micro-8

[styfle]

I just checked v9.0.0 and it reports 747K.
That's significantly smaller now and appears to be the smallest of the 4 (express, koa, hapi, micro).

Great job! 🎉

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Update 2018: You can visualize the install size difference between micro@7.3.3 and micro@8.0.0 with my new tool, Package Phobia, which is much easier than installing yourself 😄