Encore Versus Assetic?
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Symfony originally shipped with support for Assetic: a pure PHP library capable of processing, combining and minifying CSS and JavaScript files. And while Encore is now the recommended way of processing your assets, Assetic still works well.
So what are the differences between Assetic and Encore?
| Assetic | Encore | |
| Language | Pure PHP, relies on other language tools for some tasks | Node.js |
| Combine assets? | Yes | Yes |
| Minify assets? | Yes (when configured) | Yes (out-of-the-box) |
| Process Sass/Less? | Yes | Yes |
| Loads JS Modules? [1]_ | No | Yes |
| Load CSS dependencies in JS? [1] | No | Yes |
| React, Vue.js support? | No [2]_ | Yes |
| Support | Not actively maintained | Actively maintained |
1 2 3 4 5// require third-party modules var $ = require('jquery'); // require your own CoolComponent.js modules var coolComponent = require('./components/CoolComponent');Encore (via Webpack) parses these automatically and creates a JavaScript file that contains all needed dependencies. You can even require CSS or images.
Should I Upgrade from Assetic to Encore
If you already have Assetic working in an application, and haven't needed any of the features that Encore offers over Assetic, continuing to use Assetic is fine. If you do start to need more features, then you might have a business case for changing to Encore.