When I checked the site yesterday after reading this, I found that npmx was indeed faster. And on npmjs.org, the back button was broken when browsing code on the site, here not.
However, I would be wary to adopt a third-party code browser for previewing dependency code, even more than using the auhtoritative one on npmjs.org.
Downloading an archive without executing anything and looking at the content would be better if done for getting a peek.
I don't get the strong dislike for the UI though, it looks solid to me. Aesthetically conservative and nothing new, but well-executed, responsive, tidy, and with attention to detail.
I'm not sure what features I'm supposed to notice that are better, but having built-in API docs and source code browsing is nice. (Though slightly laggy.)
Nit: there are distracting animations, such as on the weekly download graph.
I don’t get it. What does it do? How can I trust it over simply visiting https://www.npmjs.com/ (which is perfectly fine to browse)?
Edit: it wants me to connect to the “atmosphere” - is this the Bluesky App Store thing? I really don’t see how linking my socials to npm search makes sense.
There’s also https://v1.run/ (packrun.dev) experimenting with an npm registry for agents that adds package scoring and MCP integration for AI coding assistants.
I've always defaulted to using https://yarnpkg.com/ to search for packages cause the npmjs.com search is so slow, but while the yarnpkg.com search is super fast, actually clicking on a package and seeing the details page takes forever.
This is super fast for both search and the details page, and it's super keyboard friendly which makes it even faster to use in practice. Definitely going to become my go-to search now. Love it, thanks for building it!
The typeahead search speed is genuinely impressive. I was typing package names and the results were appearing before I'd finished the keystroke—that's the kind of responsiveness you usually only see with native applications.
As someone who spent a year obsessing over performance in a .NET MAUI app (IMAP processing, background execution, API latency), I know how hard it is to shave milliseconds off search. The npm registry is massive, and you're clearly doing something right on the indexing or caching side.
Are you using client-side filtering with a pre-built index? Server-side with some clever caching strategy? I'm genuinely curious about the architecture choices that got you to "uncannily fast" territory—especially compared to the official npmjs.com search.
Whatever you're doing under the hood, it shows. Performance is a feature.
I hate the trend of moving away from being able to search packages from the command line to searching inside a bloated web browser. It had a happened with PyPI. And now npm. Please stop this madness.
npmx maintainer here! a few answers to questions i see:
we haven’t launched yet! we’re building openly but aiming for march 3. as is par for the course, hn gets the scoop.
i made the first commit two weeks ago, so it’s very new. but we’ve had 900+ PRs and 170+ contributors in the last fortnight… because this is something we care about.
having said that, i’m taking notes about what is and isn’t intuitive
npmjs remains the source of truth for the registry, which is why we get our data from there
but along the way we add a lot of features, like:
- claiming new packages from the ui
- batch admin operations for your orgs, teams and packages
- total install size, vulnerabilities and deprecations for your transitive dependencies
- generated docs for packages
- linkable package contents
- and more
I don't think npmx has better UI/UX than npmjs.com. It could even be said to be worse. The npmx page doesn't have any other colors, it's all gray, and the page has too many elements that are too cluttered.
You can compare these two pages:
28 comments
[ 5.0 ms ] story [ 49.8 ms ] threadnpmjs.com is not slow and not something I need to interact with very often.
And npmjs.com is still the authority when it comes to publishing packages, no? So I'd still have to use it.
However, I would be wary to adopt a third-party code browser for previewing dependency code, even more than using the auhtoritative one on npmjs.org.
Downloading an archive without executing anything and looking at the content would be better if done for getting a peek.
I don't get the strong dislike for the UI though, it looks solid to me. Aesthetically conservative and nothing new, but well-executed, responsive, tidy, and with attention to detail.
Nit: there are distracting animations, such as on the weekly download graph.
> `[nuxt] Cannot load payload /package/@storybook/addon-docs/_payload.json?c459501f-8eb7-49c9-be9c-4a197fa35a39 Error: Invalid input`
- Scrolling fast on Firefox + Chrome is broken and resets the search results page to start.
- Pressing up/down arrows should navigate search item results instead of focusing individual tag elements.
Edit: it wants me to connect to the “atmosphere” - is this the Bluesky App Store thing? I really don’t see how linking my socials to npm search makes sense.
> It's good npmx.dev shows git and https dependencies. I still think it's crazy npmjs.org doesn't.
https://bsky.app/profile/dsherret.bsky.social/post/3mer2diwj...
I've always defaulted to using https://yarnpkg.com/ to search for packages cause the npmjs.com search is so slow, but while the yarnpkg.com search is super fast, actually clicking on a package and seeing the details page takes forever.
This is super fast for both search and the details page, and it's super keyboard friendly which makes it even faster to use in practice. Definitely going to become my go-to search now. Love it, thanks for building it!
As someone who spent a year obsessing over performance in a .NET MAUI app (IMAP processing, background execution, API latency), I know how hard it is to shave milliseconds off search. The npm registry is massive, and you're clearly doing something right on the indexing or caching side.
Are you using client-side filtering with a pre-built index? Server-side with some clever caching strategy? I'm genuinely curious about the architecture choices that got you to "uncannily fast" territory—especially compared to the official npmjs.com search.
Whatever you're doing under the hood, it shows. Performance is a feature.
we haven’t launched yet! we’re building openly but aiming for march 3. as is par for the course, hn gets the scoop.
i made the first commit two weeks ago, so it’s very new. but we’ve had 900+ PRs and 170+ contributors in the last fortnight… because this is something we care about.
having said that, i’m taking notes about what is and isn’t intuitive
npmjs remains the source of truth for the registry, which is why we get our data from there
but along the way we add a lot of features, like: - claiming new packages from the ui - batch admin operations for your orgs, teams and packages - total install size, vulnerabilities and deprecations for your transitive dependencies - generated docs for packages - linkable package contents - and more
https://npmx.dev/package/vue
https://www.npmjs.com/package/vue
Decide for yourself which UX is better.
Currently it breaks words over without hyphenation, which makes some sentences hard to understand.