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Did anyone has the comparison between these two libraries (Combres2 and SquishIt)? If one library is better than another one, I also want to know the reason for that.

I found the article said that Combres2 has a better compression than SquishIt. But it is almost a year ago.

http://blog.buzzuti.com/post/Combres-vs-SquishIt-e28093-A-battle-of-Minification-Combiner-and-Squishing-in-generale280a6.aspx

ensecoz
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4 Answers4

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One thing to make note of is that SquishIt works in a different manner than Combres2, so it isn't a simple who produces better minified code.

SquishIt works very nicely with T4MVC, which you won't get with Combres2. On this basis alone I'd tell anyone to use SquishIt. Additionally, SquishIt is not xml config file based, which allows for a lot of flexibility. In fact, you could theoretically make an xml config file and mimic Combres2 if you really desired it.

In terms of minification SquishIt is actively developed, which means that if new methods to minify scripts are created you'll be more likely able to leverage that as well. Currently it supports JSMin, YUI, MS Ajax Minifier, Closure Minifier, or even no minifier.

Update 1/18/2012: There are now many other alternatives out there aside from SquishIt and Combres2. For starters, Microsoft is creating there own system for the next release of ASP.NET 4.5. Cassette, similar to SquishIt, and RequestReduce, which is quite different than anything else by automagically doing everything for you.

Akkuma
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    I wish to highlight Important difference: SquishIt is not xml config file based – Michael Freidgeim Jan 18 '12 at 19:23
  • I just implemented a site with RequestReduce. It seems pretty nice. I'll probably switch to the out of the box ASP.NET functionality once it's available; and I'd prefer to avoid using an HTTP module. But, for now this will do. Nice recommendation. – Justin Helgerson Mar 30 '12 at 16:22
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I'm a fan of SquishIt.. even though Combres and SquishIt both (optionally) use the YuiCompressor.NET library (which I am biased, for ;-) )

Being a fan of Justin Etheredge, I recommend/use SquishIt.

Pure.Krome
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The reasons to one library is better than the other (for me) is if the final result is NOT a break code and still working.

I have test and working with the Microsoft Ajax Minifier, and I assure you that is working absolute correct - can even minifie the jQuery library with out any issue.

http://ajaxmin.codeplex.com/
http://aspnet.codeplex.com/releases/view/40584

documentaion: http://www.asp.net/ajaxlibrary/AjaxMinDocumentation.ashx

Now if a library is one year old this have nothing to do, because they just working on javascript code that have some standards some years now.

To point again out : the better is the one that product minimum code that is still working under very complex javascript functions like the one jQuery have.

One note:a minified library can minified a full set of files at ones, do not try to minified one by one and them add them to a single file, this is not working.

Aristos
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  • "The reasons to one library is better than the other (for me) is if the final result is NOT a break code and still working." - 100% agree. That is also my yardstick. We had problem with SquishIt breaking javascript, so looking at Ajax Minifier now. – xagyg Feb 28 '13 at 06:27
  • @xagyg Ok, look at the extra optimizations flags to disable some of them. – Aristos Feb 28 '13 at 07:14
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This is meant as an answer to the 'Microsoft Ajax Minifier' recommendation, and a general warning for those that do so. As my reputation is a mere 41, I cannot add the comment there, where it should go. :(

For our team, the native C# VS2017 Microsoft compression (which may or may not be the same as the one labeled as 'Microsoft Ajax Minifier') failed on the css function 'calc', and badly.

That was a bit tricky to track down, since the error (obviously) only occurs during minification. And since we were minifying based on environment (interwoven with Release, Debug), that meant the calc bug (by default) never appeared on local. It just magically appeared when we pushed to production... and only on pages that used the calc function.

(Definitely agree that minimum code add-on is fantastic. But the native minifier can be faulty. So proceed with caution.)

If you are not using 'calc' (and you are noticing no other issues), then likely your team is fine with the default minification tool.

And of course, Microsoft could have fixed the bug since we discovered it. But bug reporting through msdn doesn't always lead to resolution of the issue. :(

There may be other issues. But in our case (since we use 'calc'), that was sufficient to have us investigate other minifiers, and SquishIt has been our team's choice. We had not looked at Compres2 at that time. Up until now, we've been very happy with SquishIt.

Side note: I'm in the middle of investigating minifiers again because of some sort of 'collision' between jQuery 3.6.0 and SquishIt for VS2017. (with no 'collision' between jQuery 3.4.1 and SquishIt, VS2017). Early stages of problem-solving process.

Best wishes and happy coding, Michael M.

Michael M.
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