Use pnpm When
You care about workspace scale, install speed, and reduced duplicate package storage.
Your team is comfortable standardizing on pnpm semantics.
Compare
pnpm vs npm
When pnpm's dependency model is worth the switch and when npm remains the simpler default.
npm is the default package manager many projects already use. pnpm offers performance and disk-efficiency advantages, especially in larger repos, by storing packages differently.
Use npm When
You want the lowest-friction default with the broadest ecosystem assumptions.
Your project and tooling already expect npm behavior.
Rule of Thumb
npm is the default baseline. pnpm is often better for larger modern repos.
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