Angular CLI 18: New Build System with Vite and esbuild

The Angular team has completed the transition from Webpack to a new build system powered by Vite and esbuild, making it the stable default in Angular CLI 18.

Performance Improvements

Benchmarks on large Angular applications show significant build time reductions:

• Cold production builds: up to 72% faster
• Incremental rebuild (ng serve): up to 87% faster
• Test runs with Karma: notably faster test compilation

What Changed

The build system uses esbuild for TypeScript compilation and bundling, with Vite powering the development server. The Angular CLI abstracts this completely — your angular.json and build commands remain unchanged:

ng serve       # now uses Vite dev server
ng build       # now uses esbuild
ng test        # faster compilation before test runs

Migrating Existing Projects

# Automatic migration
ng update @angular/cli @angular/core
# The CLI migration schematic updates angular.json automatically

Custom Webpack Config

Projects using @angular-builders/custom-webpack need to migrate their custom configuration to the new build system. The Angular team provides migration guides for common Webpack customisations.