Webpack 5

Webpack 5 is the latest major version of the popular module bundler, introducing significant improvements in performance, output optimization, and architectural capabilities. Persistent caching stores build results to disk, making subsequent builds dramatically faster by reusing previously computed results. Improved tree-shaking eliminates more unused code from production bundles through better analysis of module exports.

The most notable new feature is Module Federation, which allows separately built and deployed applications to share code at runtime. This enables micro-frontend architectures where different teams can develop, build, and deploy parts of a web application independently while sharing common dependencies and components. Module Federation has made Webpack 5 particularly relevant for enterprise organizations managing multiple frontend applications that need to work together. Other improvements include better long-term caching through deterministic chunk and module IDs, removal of Node.js polyfills from browser bundles by default, and native support for web workers as first-class modules.