jshint or ESLint? Here’s a Comparison Between the Two


JSHint is a code quality tool that flags potential errors in your JavaScript code. On the other hand, ESLint is a linter for JavaScript generally used for code quality. ESLint does everything that JSHint does and more. ESLint has built-in support for ECMAScript 6 (aka ES6) and ECMAScript 7. Its rules are completely pluggable and configurable, the core rules include best practices and the latest standards.

JSHint is restricted to ES5 but has a wider range of options and customizability. JSHint also integrates seamlessly with popular editors like Sublime Text, Vim, WebStorm, Visual Studio, Eclipse, etc. It’s also slightly faster than ESLint.

Here’s a comparison of the two:

If you are a JavaScript developer, you have probably heard about two popular tools: JSHint and ESLint. They both accomplish the same task — linting — but in slightly different ways. In this article, I will do a high-level comparison between the two.

Before we dive in, let’s go over what linting is and why it is important. Linting is the process of running a program that will analyze code for possible errors. The program will report back any errors that are found. This can be extremely helpful because it allows the programmer to catch these errors before they are deployed to production.

Now that we understand what linting is, let’s compare JSHint and ESLint.

There are many tools that you can use to find and identify potential problems in your JavaScript code. I’ve used both jshint and ESLint over the years, but I haven’t really done a comparison of the two, until now.

While researching a new project, I came across an article by Addy Osmani that compares jshint and ESLint. The article is very detailed and provides a great deal of information about the two linting tools in one place.

I thought it might be helpful to summarize some of the information from this article into a single page for anyone who wants to find out if it is worth their time to switch from jshint to ESLint or vice versa. The information here is based on his research, but I have also included my own personal experiences with the two tools as well.

In this article, we’ll take a look at the following topics:

What are linting tools?

Benefits of using ESLint instead of jshint

How do ESLint and jshint differ?

How to use ESLint instead of jshint

What Are Linter Tools?

Linters are tools that scan your code looking for potential problems. Often they will

Anyone who’s been working on web development for any length of time has probably heard of the mighty linter. A linter is a static code analysis tool that helps you write syntactically correct, clean, and readable code. Linting tools have been around since the days of C-based languages, but they’re especially popular with JavaScript because of the language’s complexity and flexibility.

The two most popular ones are JSHint and ESLint. They’re both quite powerful and offer many options to help you customize your linting experience. This can make choosing one a little difficult. That’s why we put together this comparison: to help you decide which one is right for you.

But first, let’s look at what these tools actually do and how they work.

JSHint is a static code analysis tool used in software development for checking if JavaScript source code complies with coding rules. It is provided with built-in configuration to enforce coding conventions and avoid errors. It is an open source project and its repository can be found on GitHub. JSHint has been written using JavaScript and Node.js.

ESLint is also a static code analysis tool for identifying problematic patterns found in JavaScript code. It is an open source project licensed under MIT and its repository can be found on GitHub. ESLint has been written using JavaScript and Node.js as well.

Comparison of JSHint vs ESLint

1. Configuration:

JSHint uses a configuration file called .jshintrc which contains options that control the behaviour of this tool when linting JavaScript files in a directory or project. This configuration file can be created manually by the developer or can be automatically generated by running jshint –init command which would ask the developer a series of questions that would help in generating this configuration file based on their answers.

On the other hand, ESLint uses a JSON formatted configuration file called .eslintrc where all of its rules are defined along with their severity level (error/warning). The rule

JSHint is a program that flags suspicious usage in programs written in JavaScript. The core project consists of a library itself as well as a CLI program distributed as a Node module.

JSHint was created by Anton Kovalyov with the help of many contributors and is available under the MIT License.

JSHint’s goal is to help JavaScript developers write complex programs without worrying about typos and language gotchas. It pretends to be a superset of the language so it can warn about using an undefined variable (or one that has been declared using var), but it also warns about using JavaScript reserved words as variable names, missing semicolons, etc.

JSHint can be used to enforce coding conventions within teams and to make sure that no sloppy or potentially dangerous code is checked into version control.

In this post, I will compare the two most popular code quality tools used in Java Script world and help you choose one of them. I will also show how to integrate these tools with popular editors such as Eclipse and IntelliJ.

The two most widely used code quality tools are JSLint, developed by Douglas Crockford, and JSHint, a fork of the original that introduces more configurability. JSHint is preferred over JSLint as it provides more configurability. The latest version of JSHint can be found here.


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