Turbopack

Turbopack is a Rust-based successor to Webpack, built by Vercel for Next.js. It promises 700x faster updates than Webpack and 10x faster than Vite.

Key Features

• Rust-Based: Written in Rust for maximum performance
• Incremental Computation: Only recomputes what changed
• Next.js Integration: Built specifically for Next.js 13+
• Lazy Bundling: Only bundles requested code
• Fast HMR: Updates in milliseconds

Installation

Turbopack is built into Next.js 13+:

pnpm create next-app --use-turbo

Usage

Next.js Development

# Use Turbopack in development
next dev --turbo

next.config.js

/** @type {import('next').NextConfig} */
const nextConfig = {
  experimental: {
    turbo: {
      // Turbopack options
    },
  },
};

module.exports = nextConfig;

Configuration

Resolve Aliases

const nextConfig = {
  experimental: {
    turbo: {
      resolveAlias: {
        '@': './src',
        '@components': './src/components',
      },
    },
  },
};

Custom Loaders

const nextConfig = {
  experimental: {
    turbo: {
      rules: {
        '*.svg': {
          loaders: ['@svgr/webpack'],
          as: '*.js',
        },
      },
    },
  },
};

Performance Benchmarks

HMR Speed (Vercel's Claims)

Bundler	Update Time (large app)
Turbopack	10ms
Vite	100ms
Webpack	1000ms

Cold Start

Bundler	Startup Time
Turbopack	1.5s
Vite	2s
Webpack	10s

Architecture

Incremental Computation

Turbopack uses a function-level caching system:

File changed → Recompute affected functions → Update bundle

Only the minimum necessary work is done on each update.

Lazy Bundling

Only bundles what's requested:

Request → Bundle required modules → Serve

Comparison with Vite

Feature	Turbopack	Vite
Language	Rust	JavaScript
HMR Speed	~10ms	~100ms
Ecosystem	Limited	Extensive
Maturity	Early	Stable
Framework	Next.js only	Framework agnostic

Current Status (2025)

• Stability: Beta, recommended for Next.js development
• Production: Not yet recommended for production builds
• Ecosystem: Growing, limited plugins
• Documentation: Improving

Use Cases

Next.js Development

Perfect for large Next.js applications:

next dev --turbo

Vercel Deployment

Optimized for Vercel platform:

# Vercel automatically uses Turbopack
vercel dev

Limitations

• Next.js only (not framework-agnostic)
• Limited plugin ecosystem
• Early stage (breaking changes possible)
• Production builds still use Webpack

Future Roadmap

• Production build support
• Framework-agnostic version
• Plugin API stabilization
• Community plugin ecosystem

Resources

• Docs: turbo.build/pack
• GitHub: vercel/turbo
• Next.js: nextjs.org