The Advantages of Using a Monorepo for Your Projects
Explore how monorepos can improve collaboration, code sharing, and development workflows.
Ege Bilge
Founder & Developer at codebiy.com
March 13, 20255 min read
The Advantages of Using a Monorepo for Your Projects
In recent years, monorepos have gained popularity among development teams of all sizes. Companies like Google, Facebook, and Microsoft have been using monorepos for years, and tools like TurboRepo, Nx, and Lerna have made monorepos more accessible to everyone. In this article, we'll explore the advantages of using a monorepo for your projects.
What is a Monorepo?
A monorepo (monolithic repository) is a version control repository that contains multiple projects or packages. These projects may be related or unrelated, but they're all stored in a single repository.
Advantages of Monorepos
1. Code Sharing and Reuse
One of the biggest advantages of monorepos is the ability to easily share and reuse code across projects. With a monorepo, you can create shared libraries or components that can be used by multiple applications.
monorepo/ packages/ ui-components/ utils/ api-client/ apps/ web/ mobile/ admin/
In this example, the
ui-componentsutilsapi-client2. Simplified Dependency Management
With a monorepo, you have a single source of truth for dependencies. You don't have to worry about version conflicts or inconsistencies across projects.
{ "name": "monorepo", "private": true, "workspaces": [ "packages/*", "apps/*" ], "dependencies": { "react": "^18.0.0", "react-dom": "^18.0.0" } }
3. Atomic Changes
Monorepos allow you to make atomic changes across multiple projects. For example, if you need to update a shared component and all the applications that use it, you can do this in a single commit.
4. Consistent Tooling
With a monorepo, you can use the same tools, configurations, and workflows across all your projects. This includes linting rules, testing frameworks, build processes, and more.
{ "name": "monorepo", "scripts": { "lint": "eslint .", "test": "jest", "build": "turbo run build" } }
5. Simplified CI/CD
Monorepos can simplify your CI/CD pipelines. Tools like TurboRepo can determine which projects have changed and only build and test those projects, saving time and resources.
# .github/workflows/ci.yml name: CI on: push: branches: [main] pull_request: branches: [main] jobs: build: runs-on: ubuntu-latest steps: - uses: actions/checkout@v2 - uses: actions/setup-node@v2 - run: npm install - run: npx turbo run build --filter=[HEAD^1]
6. Better Collaboration
Monorepos can improve collaboration between teams. With all the code in one place, it's easier for developers to understand the entire system and make changes that affect multiple projects.
Popular Monorepo Tools
TurboRepo
TurboRepo is a high-performance build system for JavaScript and TypeScript monorepos. It provides incremental builds, remote caching, and optimized task scheduling.
Nx
Nx is a set of extensible dev tools for monorepos. It provides a powerful CLI, code generators, and a dependency graph visualization tool.
Lerna
Lerna is one of the oldest monorepo tools for JavaScript. It helps manage multi-package repositories with git and npm.
Conclusion
Monorepos offer numerous advantages for development teams, including improved code sharing, simplified dependency management, atomic changes, consistent tooling, simplified CI/CD, and better collaboration. While they may not be the right choice for every project, they're worth considering for teams working on multiple related projects.
If you're interested in trying out a monorepo, start with a tool like TurboRepo, Nx, or Lerna, and see how it can improve your development workflow.