This content originally appeared on DEV Community and was authored by Anuradha Aggarwal
Hello Developers!! While working on any of your projects you might have come across NPM.
NPM stands for Node Package Manager and is a go to tool for managing NodeJS packages.
- It helps you install libraries, manage dependencies & even define scripts to automate tasks.
Now switch to the term NPX which stands for Node Package Execute
it comes with the NPM, when you installed NPM above 5.2.0 version then automatically NPX will installed.
It is a NPM package runner that can execute any package that you want from the NPM registry without even installing that package.
Let’s take a simple example to understand the difference between the two:
🎯 NPM
📍 Example
Create a new directory
mkdir test-project
cd test-project
Now install the package cowsay using NPM
npm install cowsay
Now if you check your project directory there will be new entry created inside the node_modules
You can use this new package using that path like
./node_modules/.bin/cowsay hello
Or instead of using the whole path, directly use the package name like
cowsay world
So now you understand whenever we use NPM for any package update you have to install it which will occupy space in your system.
📍 Usage
You are working on a long-term project where you’ll frequently use the same packages and libraries.
You want to manage dependencies and ensure they are tracked in your package.json.
🎯 NPX
📍 Example
It is a NPM Package Executor that can execute any package that you want from the NPM registry without even installing that package.
Let’s try this out:
mkdir test-npx
cd test-npx
npx cowsay hello
Also if you check test-npx directory, it is empty that means this package does not occupy any space.
📍 Usage
You want to execute a package without permanently installing it.
You’re running one-off commands like create-react-app, eslint, or package binaries.
You need to run a specific version of a package or command without modifying your existing setup.
🎯 Wrap Up!!
That's all for this article. Thank you for your time!! Let's connect to learn and grow together. LinkedIn Twitter Instagram
This content originally appeared on DEV Community and was authored by Anuradha Aggarwal
Anuradha Aggarwal | Sciencx (2025-09-03T09:05:54+00:00) NPM v/s NPX. Retrieved from https://www.scien.cx/2025/09/03/npm-v-s-npx/
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