Compare

Lets compare the features of WXT vs Plasmo (another framework) and CRXJS (a bundler plugin).

Overview

• ✅ - Full support
• 🟡 - Partial support
• ❌ - No support

Features	WXT	Plasmo	CRXJS
Maintained	✅	🟡 [1]	🟡 [2]
Supports all browsers	✅	✅	🟡 [3]
MV2 Support	✅	✅	🟡 [4]
MV3 Support	✅	✅	🟡 [4]
Create Extension ZIPs	✅	✅	❌
Create Firefox Sources ZIP	✅	❌	❌
First-class TypeScript support	✅	✅	✅
Entrypoint discovery	✅ [5]	✅ [5]	❌
Inline entrypoint config	✅	✅	❌ [6]
Auto-imports	✅	❌	❌
Reusable module system	✅	❌	❌
Supports all frontend frameworks	✅	🟡 [7]	✅
Framework specific entrypoints (like Popup.tsx)	🟡 [8]	✅ [9]	❌
Automated publishing	✅	✅	❌
Remote Code Bundling (Google Analytics)	✅	✅	❌
Unlisted HTML Pages	✅	✅	✅
Unlisted Scripts	✅	❌	❌
ESM Content Scripts	❌ [10]	❌	✅
Dev Mode
.env Files	✅	✅	✅
Opens browser with extension installed	✅	❌	❌
HMR for UIs	✅	🟡 [11]	✅
Reload HTML Files on Change	✅	🟡 [12]	✅
Reload Content Scripts on Change	✅	🟡 [12]	✅
Reload Background on Change	🟡 [12]	🟡 [12]	🟡 [12]
Respects Content Script run_at	✅	✅	❌ [13]
Built-in Wrappers
Storage	✅	✅	❌ [14]
Messaging	❌ [14]	✅	❌ [14]
Content Script UI	✅	✅	❌ [14]
I18n	✅	❌	❌

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1. Appears to be in maintenance mode with little to no maintainers nor feature development happening and (see wxt-dev/wxt#1404 (comment)) ↩︎

2. See crxjs/chrome-extension-tools#974 ↩︎

3. As of v2.0.0-beta.23, but v2 stable hasn't been released yet. ↩︎

4. Either MV2 or MV3, not both. ↩︎ ↩︎

5. File based. ↩︎ ↩︎

6. Entrypoint options all configured in manifest.json. ↩︎

7. Only React, Vue, and Svelte. ↩︎

8. .html, .ts, .tsx. ↩︎

9. .html, .ts, .tsx, .vue, .svelte. ↩︎

10. WIP, moving very slowly. Follow wxt-dev/wxt#357 for updates. ↩︎

11. React only. ↩︎

12. Reloads entire extension. ↩︎ ↩︎ ↩︎ ↩︎ ↩︎

13. ESM-style loaders run asynchronously. ↩︎

14. There is no built-in wrapper around this API. However, you can still access the standard APIs via chrome/browser globals or use any 3rd party NPM package. ↩︎ ↩︎ ↩︎ ↩︎