Choosing between Wrangler & Vite
Wrangler and the Cloudflare Vite plugin both provide local development environments for Workers. Both support backend Workers, local and remote bindings, and multi-Worker applications.
Choose based on the build tools your project uses. You can also use the Vite plugin for development and builds while using Wrangler for deployment and other Workers commands.
Compare Wrangler and Vite
| Capability or workflow | Wrangler | Cloudflare Vite plugin |
|---|---|---|
| Standalone JavaScript or TypeScript Workers | Supported | Supported |
| Full-stack and backend Workers | Supported | Supported |
| Local binding simulations via Miniflare | Supported | Supported |
| Remote bindings | Supported | Supported |
| Multi-Worker development | Supported | Supported |
| Frontend and server-side rendering frameworks | Use the framework build output | Integrates with Vite-powered frameworks |
| Build pipeline | Uses Wrangler's bundler or a custom build | Uses Vite transformations, Hot Module Replacement, and plugins |
| Deployment and resource management | Supported | Use Wrangler after vite build |
| Rust Workers | Supported | Not supported |
| Python Workers | Use pywrangler instead of wrangler | Not supported |
Use the Cloudflare Vite plugin when your project already uses Vite or would benefit from its build pipeline. Vite is valid for standalone backend Workers, not only frontend applications.
Use wrangler dev when your project does not use Vite or you want a direct command-line workflow. Wrangler also provides deployment and resource management commands.
For local development that requires deployed resources, both tools support remote bindings. Your Worker runs locally while selected bindings connect to deployed Cloudflare resources.
For configuration differences when moving an existing project, refer to Migrating from wrangler dev.