Npm's green bundle badges lure devs with 'tiny' sizes, but install emotion css and watch node_modules bloat bigger than your startup's burn rate

A recent examination of package metrics on GitHub and NPM has revealed that bundle size badges, often used to indicate package quality, may be misleading. The badges, which display metrics such as gzip size and minzipped size, do not accurately reflect a package's quality, feature richness, or effectiveness. Using Emotion CSS and Styled Components as examples, the analysis highlights the difference between bundle size and install size, with the latter taking into account recursive dependencies. The study found that the install size of the framework-agnostic @emotion/css library exceeded that of its competitor, despite having a smaller bundle size. This discrepancy underscores the importance of considering the entire package, including dependencies and features, rather than relying solely on bundle size badges. The findings have significant implications for web development, where high performance is often associated with small bundle sizes, and highlight the need for a more nuanced approach to evaluating package quality.