pnpm

    pnpm/pnpm

    #427 this week

    Fast, disk space efficient package manager

    backend
    dependency-manager
    install
    javascript
    modules
    node
    TypeScript
    MIT
    34.8K stars
    1.4K forks
    34.8K GitHub watchers
    Updated 6/25/2026
    View on GitHub

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    Use Cases & Benefits

    • Provides a fast and disk space efficient package manager for JavaScript and Node.js projects.
    • Saves significant disk space by using a content-addressable storage and linking files instead of duplicating them.
    • Use for managing dependencies in large monorepos to optimize installation speed and storage.
    • Use for projects requiring strict dependency access control to ensure packages only access declared dependencies.
    • Use for cross-platform development environments on Windows, Linux, and macOS with consistent, deterministic installs.

    About pnpm

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    pnpm

    Fast, disk space efficient package manager:

    • Fast. Up to 2x faster than the alternatives (see benchmark).
    • Efficient. Files inside node_modules are linked from a single content-addressable storage.
    • Great for monorepos.
    • Strict. A package can access only dependencies that are specified in its package.json.
    • Deterministic. Has a lockfile called pnpm-lock.yaml.
    • Works as a Node.js version manager. See pnpm env use.
    • Works everywhere. Supports Windows, Linux, and macOS.
    • Battle-tested. Used in production by teams of all sizes since 2016.
    • See the full feature comparison with npm and Yarn.

    To quote the Rush team:

    Microsoft uses pnpm in Rush repos with hundreds of projects and hundreds of PRs per day, and we’ve found it to be very fast and reliable.

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    Platinum Sponsors

    Bit

    Gold Sponsors

    Discord CodeRabbit Workleap
    Stackblitz Vite

    Silver Sponsors

    u|screen Leniolabs_ Depot
    devowl.io Cerbos Vite
    OOMOL Studio

    Support this project by becoming a sponsor.

    Background

    pnpm uses a content-addressable filesystem to store all files from all module directories on a disk. When using npm, if you have 100 projects using lodash, you will have 100 copies of lodash on disk. With pnpm, lodash will be stored in a content-addressable storage, so:

    1. If you depend on different versions of lodash, only the files that differ are added to the store. If lodash has 100 files, and a new version has a change only in one of those files, pnpm update will only add 1 new file to the storage.
    2. All the files are saved in a single place on the disk. When packages are installed, their files are linked from that single place consuming no additional disk space. Linking is performed using either hard-links or reflinks (copy-on-write).

    As a result, you save gigabytes of space on your disk and you have a lot faster installations! If you'd like more details about the unique node_modules structure that pnpm creates and why it works fine with the Node.js ecosystem, read this small article: Flat node_modules is not the only way.

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    Getting Started

    Benchmark

    pnpm is up to 2x faster than npm and Yarn classic. See all benchmarks here.

    Benchmarks on an app with lots of dependencies:

    License

    MIT

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