1. The minimized versions of the library lib-jitsi-meet i.e. the file
lib-jitsi-meet.js with the default configurations of Browserify and
Webpack are, respectively, 614KB and 424KB. That's a reduction in
file size of approximately 30%. While such a reduction may be
achieved with Browserify, such a configuration would be non-default
i.e. it would be more complex.
2. The build process of the library lib-jitsi-meet with Browserify is
split into three distinct steps by package.json: transpile, version,
and minimize. The transpile step produces a .js file and a source map
which get consumed by the minimize step (as input files). A possible
problem appears during the version step which modifies the .js file
without modifying the respective source map. Thus, there is a risk
that the source map of the minimized version of the library
lib-jitsi-meet is broken. The Webpack approach carries out the
version step in a way that precludes the possible breaking of the
source map.
3. The introduction of ES2015 forced us to split the Babel-related parts
of the build process out of package.json into start_browserify.js. As
may be seen by comparing start_browserify.js and webpack.config.js,
there are similarities. The advantage of Webpack is that the other
parts of the build process are inside webpack.config.js as well. In
other words, there is no split in the build process and there is less
complexity.