Turbopack Goes Stable in Next.js 15 — Build Times Cut by 70%

Vercel declared Turbopack stable in Next.js 15, replacing Webpack as the default bundler for new projects. The Rust-based bundler delivers 76% faster production builds on large codebases (measured across 50+ production Next.js apps) and 10x faster dev server startup compared to Webpack. Existing projects can opt in with `next build --turbo`.

Build times are developer morale killers. Large Next.js apps often waited 5-10 minutes for production builds — now reduced to 1-3 minutes. Dev server startup times dropping from 30+ seconds to under 3 seconds meaningfully improves iteration speed for active development.

Webpack's dominance ends for Next.js. Vite remains strong for non-Next React projects, but Turbopack pressures the whole bundler ecosystem. Rspack and Rolldown teams cite Turbopack's success as validation for Rust-based bundlers. Meanwhile, Webpack's maintainers are discussing major architectural changes to stay competitive.

Watch for Turbopack adoption beyond Next.js — Vercel wants it to become a general-purpose bundler. Also track whether Rspack (created by ByteDance) closes the gap on Turbopack performance. Finally, Vite's Rolldown transition planned for 6.0 will make Vite competitive again.