A stab at building my own string diffing library
Took a stab at building my own string diffing JS package. I built an interactive demo for TypeIt’s website (https://typeitjs.com/build-your-own) a while back. The approach I took to handle user input necessitated a way to calculate the difference between the versions of a user’s text input. I searched around for a package to help me out and found a couple of good ones (like fast-diff), but I either didn’t really like their API or didn’t want to take on a huge new dependency. Instead, I thought I’d give it a shot myself (famous last words). I dove into it having no real formal…
In plain words
Striff is a JavaScript string diffing library designed to calculate differences between versions of text input. Built for developers who need diffing functionality without heavy dependencies, it uses JavaScript symbols to efficiently compare characters. The package is lightweight at just over 600 bytes when gzipped, making it suitable for projects where minimal bundle size matters.
written from the facts on this page · September 2026
From the sources
In the maker’s words, at launch
Took a stab at building my own string diffing JS package. I built an interactive demo for TypeIt’s website (https://typeitjs.com/build-your-own) a while back. The approach I took to handle user input necessitated a way to calculate the difference between the versions of a user’s text input. I searched around for a package to help me out and found a couple of good ones (like fast-diff), but I either didn’t really like their API or didn’t want to take on a huge new dependency. Instead, I thought I’d give it a shot myself (famous last words). I dove into it having no real formal knowledge of the algorithmic approaches to string diffing, and so things got frustrating real fast. But then I figured out a way to build it out using JavaScript symbols to link characters that helped ease the complexity a ton. It all resulted in “striff,” which comes in at just over 600 bytes gzipped, and that I’ve been using in production for a couple of months now. It’s a little weird looking back now, because I don’t think I’d recommend someone taking the same path in building your own, but at the same time, there’s an immense satisfaction knowing I was able to figure out a pretty reliable approach. Check it out: https://github.com/alexmacarthur/striff
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