In the JavaScript community, software engineers share thousands of pieces of code. This helps them avoid rewriting basic components, frameworks, or libraries. Each piece may, in turn, depend on other pieces of code—thusly called dependencies. Dependencies are then managed by package managers, the most common of which is the npm client. Millions of engineers use this app, which provides access to more than 300,000 packages and sees up to five billion downloads every month. However, if you are looking for an alternative to the npm registry, there are other package managers available, including Yarn. This development software offers a new solution to manager dependencies more reliably. It is an open-source app that you can try if you are looking for a fast, reliable, and secure alternative to npm client. 

An improvement over npm

Yarn is a project of Facebook in collaboration with Exponent, Google, and Tilde. It is technically a replacement for npm since it relies on modules from the npm registry. With it, engineers can still access the npm registry, but they can install packages quickly and consistently manage the dependencies across machines. More than that, they can do that in a secure offline environment. However, some characteristics set the app apart from npm. For one, Yarn is deterministic, alleviating the mess of managing version numbers of package.json.

Whenever you add a module, the app updates a yarn.lock file, which ensures that the same dependencies are installed on every device. Additionally, Yarn can perform multiple installation steps at once. With this, you can drastically accelerate the process. The app is also way faster than any npm version. Since Yarn only installs your yarn.lock or package.json files, it is considered to be more secure than npm. Moreover, Yarn also uses checksums before installation to ensure the integrity of each package. 

All in all, Yarn is a better option when you are looking to replace npm. However, while it is considerably better than npm, it is not without its problems. For one, using npm and Yarn together can create conflicts. Additionally, despite enabling faster installs, the app adds to your disk space since it stores dependencies locally.