Original author(s) | Babel team |
---|---|
Developer(s) | contributors |
Stable release | 6.26.3
/ April 27, 2018[1] |
Written in | JavaScript |
Operating system | Linux, macOS, Solaris, FreeBSD, OpenBSD, Microsoft Windows |
Type | compiler |
License | MIT[2] |
Website | babeljs |
Babel or Babel.js is a free and open-source JavaScript compiler and configurable transpiler used in web development. Babel allows software developers to write source code in a preferred programming language or markup language and have it translated by Babel into JavaScript, a language understood by modern web browsers.
Babel is popular tool for using the newest features of the JavaScript programming language.[3] As a transpiler, or source-to-source compiler, developers can program using new ECMAScript 6 (ES6) language features by using Babel to convert their source code into versions of JavaScript that evolving browsers are able to process.[4] The core version of Babel is downloaded 5 million times a month.[5]
Babel plugins are available to provide specific conversions used in web development. For example, developers working with React.js, can use Babel to convert JSX (JavaScript eXtension) markup into JavaScript using the Babel preset "react".[6][7]