Differences between `tsm` & `tsnode`?

[Enteleform]

What use cases & functionality does tsm provide that ts-node does not?

In what cases would it be better to prefer one over the other?

[lukeed]

• tsm uses esbuild, so it's much faster
• tsm can be run without any configuration by default
• tsm offers a configuration file that allows you to use/import far more than just JS/TS (html, css, blob urls, etc)
• tsm supports the .mts and .cts extensions
• tsm will auto-resolve the .mts/.cts file through an import to its .mjs/.cjs would-be output
• tsm works without a tsconfig.json file present, which means it can be run/installed globally
• tsm does not require typescript as a peer dependency

• tsm rewrites module formats on the fly so that you can use tsm in any way that suits your toolchain without compromising the semantics of your code. AKA, it allows you to handle this test scenario, which would fail with ts-node (or even with esm if it were there were no TS involvement)

  // src/math.mjs
  // or src/math.js w/ type: module
  export const sum = (a, b) => a + b;
  
  // test/math.ts
  import * as assert from 'assert';
  import * as math from '../src/math.mjs';
  
  assert.equal(math.sum(1, 2), 3);

  run it via:

  $ node -r tsm test/math.ts # works
  $ node -r ts-node/register test/math.ts # fails
  $ node -r ts-node/register/transpile-only test/math.ts # fails
  
  $ tsm test/math.ts # success
  $ ts-node --transpile-only test/math.ts # fails
  
  $ node --loader tsm test/math.ts # success
  $ node --loader ts-node/esm/transpile-only test/math.ts # fails UNLESS:
  # - you have `"type": "module"` in package.json
  # - you have `tsconfig.json` file with `"module": "esnext"` or equivalent

Overall, tsm is much faster and does not have all the same friction issues. It's effectively a blend between a bundler and a runtime transformer, offering complete flexibility (for extensions & for tooling integration) and without compromising any of the import/export semantics of your files.

[opensas]

I think something like this belongs to the readme file