Monorepo vs Turborepo: A Comprehensive Guide to Tools and Concepts

If you’ve been in the software development world for a while, you’ve likely heard the term "monorepo" thrown around in conversations about project structure. And if you’ve dug a little deeper, you might have stumbled upon Turborepo, a tool that’s gained a lot of buzz lately. But what’s the difference between a monorepo and Turborepo? Are they the same thing? Spoiler alert: they’re not, but they’re closely related. In this blog, we’ll break down what a monorepo is, what Turborepo brings to the table, and how they fit together in modern development workflows.

What’s a Monorepo?

Let’s start with the basics. A monorepo—short for "monolithic repository"—is a software development strategy where all the code for multiple projects is stored in a single repository. Imagine you’re working on a web app with a frontend built in React, a backend in Node.js, and a shared utility library. In a traditional setup (sometimes called a "polyrepo" approach), each of these components might live in its own separate repository. With a monorepo, they’re all housed under one roof.

Why would you do this? Monorepos offer some compelling advantages:

• Code Sharing Made Easy: Need that utility function in both your frontend and backend? In a monorepo, it’s just an import away—no need to publish it as a separate package.

• Single Source of Truth: One repository means one place to manage dependencies, versioning, and configurations. Say goodbye to mismatched package versions across repos!

• Atomic Changes: You can update multiple projects in a single commit, ensuring everything stays in sync.

But monorepos aren’t without their challenges. As your codebase grows, so does complexity. Building, testing, and linting multiple projects can slow things down, especially if you’re running every task from scratch every time. That’s where tools like Turborepo come in.

Enter Turborepo: The Monorepo Supercharger

Turborepo isn’t a monorepo itself—it’s a tool designed to make monorepos faster and more manageable. Created by Vercel, Turborepo is a high-performance build system tailored for JavaScript and TypeScript codebases. It tackles the scaling issues that monorepos often face by optimizing how tasks (like building, testing, or linting) are executed.

Here’s what makes Turborepo special:

• Smart Caching: Turborepo caches the results of tasks locally and (optionally) remotely. If nothing’s changed in a project, it skips the work and pulls from the cache instead. This can turn a 10-minute build into a 10-second one.

• Parallel Execution: Got multiple CPU cores? Turborepo uses them to run tasks across your projects concurrently, slashing execution time.

• Task Dependencies: Define relationships between tasks (e.g., “test” depends on “build”) in a turbo.json file, and Turborepo schedules them efficiently.

• Incremental Adoption: You don’t need to overhaul your entire setup. Add Turborepo to an existing monorepo, and it works with your current package.json scripts and package managers like npm, Yarn, or pnpm.

Think of Turborepo as a turbocharger for your monorepo engine—it doesn’t change what a monorepo is, but it makes it run a whole lot faster.

Monorepo vs. Turborepo: A Side-by-Side Look

To clear up any confusion, let’s compare the two directly:

In short, a monorepo is the what—the structure of your codebase—while Turborepo is the how—a way to make that structure work efficiently at scale.

When Should You Use a Monorepo (With or Without Turborepo)?

Not every project needs a monorepo, and not every monorepo needs Turborepo. Here’s a quick guide:

• Use a Monorepo If: You have related projects with shared code, or you want to streamline dependency management and cross-project changes. Big players like Google, Facebook, and Vercel swear by this approach for a reason.

• Add Turborepo If: Your monorepo is slowing down due to redundant builds, or you’re working in a team where fast feedback loops are critical. It’s especially handy for JavaScript/TypeScript projects with lots of interdependent tasks.

If you’re just starting with a small, standalone app, a monorepo might be overkill—and Turborepo along with it. But as your codebase grows, these tools can save you hours (and headaches).

Getting Started with Turborepo in a Monorepo

Ready to give it a spin? Here’s a quick way to set up a monorepo with Turborepo:

1. Create a Monorepo: Run npx create-turbo@latest to scaffold a basic monorepo with apps (e.g., a Next.js frontend) and packages (e.g., shared utilities).

2. Define Tasks: Add a turbo.json file to specify tasks like "build", "test", or "lint", along with their dependencies.

3. Run It: Use turbo run build to execute the build task across all projects. Watch Turborepo cache the results and speed things up on the next run!

Final Thoughts

Monorepos and Turborepo aren’t competing ideas—they’re a dynamic duo. A monorepo gives you a unified way to manage your projects, while Turborepo ensures that unity doesn’t come at the cost of performance. Whether you’re a solo developer juggling multiple apps or part of a team scaling a massive codebase, understanding these concepts can level up your workflow.

Have you tried a monorepo setup yet? Or maybe you’ve already turbocharged one with Turborepo? I’d love to hear your experiences in the comments—let’s geek out over build systems together!