npmCLI & Toolingupdated 05 Aug 2026

prettier

Item: prettier
Rating: 4.8
Author: Keyoor

Prettier is an opinionated code formatter for JavaScript, TypeScript, JSX, JSON, CSS, SCSS, Less, HTML, Vue, Angular, GraphQL, Markdown and YAML. It parses your code and reprints it from scratch under its own line-length-aware rules, which means the whole team gets one style and nobody argues about it in review. It runs on save in editors, in pre-commit hooks, and in CI with a check mode. It formats only; it does not lint for bugs.

prettier · v3.9.6 · 128.4M/wk · 25.4 kB min+gz · ★ 52,173 · pushed 04 Aug 2026 · prettier/prettier · docs · reviewed by Keyoor

Verdict

The default choice and still the safest one: massive adoption, every editor supports it, and the opinionated model is the whole point. Pick Biome instead only when repo-scale formatting speed is a real problem or you want formatter and linter unified.

API stability4/5CLI and options surface have barely changed since v3 (2023), but formatted output can shift between releases, which forces reformat commits and means you must pin versions in CI.

Docs5/5prettier.io documents every option, the CLI, the Node API and editor setup, and the live playground reproduces any formatting question in seconds.

Maintenance5/5Pushed August 2026 with steady releases (3.9.6 in July 2026), an active plugin API, and a large maintainer group behind a tool most of npm depends on.

Ecosystem5/5About 128M weekly downloads, first-class extensions in every major editor, lint-staged/husky integration everywhere, and eslint-config-prettier smoothing the ESLint overlap.

Use it if

You want formatting debates gone from code review and are willing to accept Prettier's choices instead of tuning your own style
Your repo mixes languages (TS, CSS, Markdown, YAML, JSON) and you want one formatter with one config for all of them
You need the standard toolchain path: editor extension on save, lint-staged in pre-commit, prettier --check in CI

Skip it if

You want control over formatting style. Prettier is intentionally near-zero-config; if your team insists on a specific wrapping or brace style, you will fight the tool forever and lose
You are formatting a very large monorepo and speed matters: Prettier runs on JavaScript and full-repo runs are noticeably slower than Rust-based Biome doing the same job
You only format JS/TS and already run Biome or deno fmt; adding Prettier just duplicates a tool you have
Your main languages are outside the built-in list (PHP, Java, Ruby): those need third-party plugins of uneven quality and maintenance

Setup reality

npm install -D prettier plus a .prettierrc and .prettierignore takes five minutes. The annoying parts: the first whole-repo run produces one giant diff commit; formatted output can change between Prettier releases, so pin the exact version or CI checks break on upgrade day; and if you use ESLint you must add eslint-config-prettier to turn off conflicting style rules or the two tools will fight. Editors also need the Prettier extension set as the default formatter per language.

Patterns

Format the whole project from the CLIformat-project

npx prettier --write .

Respects .prettierignore and .gitignore; run this once as its own commit so the reformat noise stays out of feature diffs.

Create a .prettierrc configconfig-file

{
  "semi": true,
  "singleQuote": true,
  "trailingComma": "all",
  "printWidth": 100
}

These few options are nearly all you get; that is by design. printWidth is a guideline for the wrapping algorithm, not a hard max line length.

Fail CI when files are not formattedcheck-in-ci

npx prettier --check .
# exits 1 and lists unformatted files

Pin the exact prettier version in package.json; a minor upgrade can change output and turn CI red with no code changes.

Ignore files or a single expressionignore-code

# .prettierignore
dist/
coverage/

// in code, skips the next node:
// prettier-ignore
const matrix = [
  1, 0,
  0, 1,
];

prettier-ignore covers exactly the next AST node, so hand-aligned matrices and ASCII tables survive.

Stop ESLint and Prettier from fightingeslint-integration

npm i -D eslint-config-prettier

// eslint.config.js (flat config)
import prettierConfig from 'eslint-config-prettier';
export default [
  // ...your configs,
  prettierConfig,
];

Put it last so it wins; it disables ESLint style rules that conflict. Prefer this over eslint-plugin-prettier, which reruns Prettier inside ESLint and is slower.

Format a string with the Node APIapi-format

import * as prettier from 'prettier';

const formatted = await prettier.format('const x  =  1', {
  parser: 'babel',
});

format() returns a Promise since v3; the sync v2 call sites all need await when you upgrade.

Different options for specific filesper-filetype-overrides

{
  "printWidth": 100,
  "overrides": [
    {
      "files": "*.md",
      "options": { "proseWrap": "always", "printWidth": 80 }
    }
  ]
}

Overrides match by glob and merge onto the base config; this is the sanctioned escape hatch instead of multiple config files.

Format staged files before commitpre-commit-hook

npm i -D husky lint-staged

// package.json
"lint-staged": {
  "**/*": "prettier --write --ignore-unknown"
}

// .husky/pre-commit
npx lint-staged

--ignore-unknown lets the catch-all glob skip binaries and file types Prettier cannot parse instead of erroring.

Add a language or framework pluginuse-plugin

npm i -D prettier-plugin-tailwindcss

// .prettierrc
{
  "plugins": ["prettier-plugin-tailwindcss"]
}

Since v3 plugins must be listed explicitly in config; auto-discovery from node_modules was removed.

Format on save in VS Codeeditor-on-save

// .vscode/settings.json
{
  "editor.defaultFormatter": "esbenp.prettier-vscode",
  "editor.formatOnSave": true
}

Commit this to the repo so every contributor formats the same way; a per-language block wins if someone has another default formatter.

Alternatives

Package	Registry	Pick it when
@biomejs/biome	npm	You want a much faster Rust formatter plus linter in one binary and mostly write JS/TS/JSON/CSS
dprint	npm	You want a pluggable Rust-based formatter with Prettier-compatible plugins and per-plugin config