npm Package Stats

Package metadata is fetched from the npm registry API (registry.npmjs.org). Weekly download counts are from the npm downloads API (api.npmjs.org). All requests are made directly from your browser — no proxy server involved.

npm counts a download each time a package tarball is fetched from the registry — including automated CI builds, docker image builds, and bots. The count doesn't represent unique users or installs. Very popular packages like lodash see hundreds of millions of weekly downloads due to transitive dependencies in CI pipelines.

Unpacked size is the total size of all files in the package after extraction from the .tgz tarball. It represents the disk space used when you run npm install. This differs from the tarball size (smaller, compressed) and the bundle size (depends on tree-shaking and bundler config).

dependencies are packages required at runtime — they are installed when users install your package. devDependencies are only needed during development and testing (bundlers, test frameworks, type definitions). Users who install your package don't get devDependencies, which reduces their install size.

Look at: last publish date (more than 2 years may mean abandoned), number of open issues vs closed, recent commit activity on GitHub, whether the package has a CHANGELOG, and the number of maintainers. A high weekly download count alone doesn't indicate active maintenance — many abandoned packages are widely used transitively.

Scoped packages use the @scope/name format. They allow organizations to publish related packages under a namespace. Public scoped packages (like @babel/core) are free on npm. Private scoped packages require an npm paid account. The scope doesn't affect functionality — it's just a namespace.