---
og_image: "/images/guides/html-minifier-terser-vs-htmlnano-vs-minify-html-html-2026.webp"
title: "html-minifier-terser vs htmlnano vs minify-html (2026)"
description: "Compare html-minifier-terser, htmlnano, and minify-html for minifying HTML in Node.js. Template minification, build tool integration, performance benchmarks."
date: "2026-03-09"
author: "PkgPulse Team"
tags: ["nodejs", "typescript", "developer-tools", "performance"]
---
## TL;DR
**html-minifier-terser** is the most popular HTML minifier — feature-rich, handles inline CSS/JS, highly configurable, maintained fork of html-minifier. **htmlnano** is the modular HTML minifier — PostCSS-style plugin architecture, integrates with PostHTML, safe defaults, used by Parcel. **minify-html** is the Rust-based HTML minifier — blazing fast native performance, WASM and Node.js bindings, aggressive minification. In 2026: html-minifier-terser for maximum configurability, htmlnano for PostHTML/Parcel integration, minify-html for maximum speed.
## Key Takeaways
- **html-minifier-terser**: ~10M weekly downloads — feature-rich, configurable, handles inline CSS/JS
- **htmlnano**: ~2M weekly downloads — modular plugins, PostHTML ecosystem, used by Parcel
- **minify-html**: ~500K weekly downloads — Rust/WASM, fastest performance, aggressive defaults
- All three reduce HTML file sizes by removing whitespace, comments, and redundant attributes
- html-minifier-terser is the most battle-tested and widely used
- minify-html is 5-10x faster than JS-based minifiers
---
## html-minifier-terser
[html-minifier-terser](https://github.com/terser/html-minifier-terser) — feature-rich HTML minifier:
### Basic usage
```typescript
import { minify } from "html-minifier-terser"
const html = `
PkgPulse
Compare npm packages
`
const minified = await minify(html, {
collapseWhitespace: true,
removeComments: true,
minifyCSS: true,
minifyJS: true,
removeRedundantAttributes: true,
removeEmptyAttributes: true,
removeOptionalTags: true,
})
// → PkgPulseCompare npm packages
```
### Full configuration
```typescript
import { minify } from "html-minifier-terser"
const result = await minify(html, {
// Whitespace:
collapseWhitespace: true,
conservativeCollapse: false, // Don't preserve single space
collapseInlineTagWhitespace: false,
// Comments:
removeComments: true,
removeCommentsFromCDATA: true,
// Attributes:
removeRedundantAttributes: true, // Remove type="text" from input
removeEmptyAttributes: true, // Remove class=""
removeOptionalTags: true, // Remove optional closing tags
removeAttributeQuotes: true, // Remove quotes when safe
collapseBooleanAttributes: true, // disabled="disabled" → disabled
sortAttributes: true,
sortClassName: true,
// Inline CSS/JS:
minifyCSS: true, // Uses clean-css
minifyJS: true, // Uses terser
minifyURLs: true,
// HTML5:
html5: true,
useShortDoctype: true,
// Custom processing:
processScripts: ["application/ld+json"], // Minify JSON-LD
})
```
### With build tools
```typescript
// Webpack — html-webpack-plugin uses html-minifier-terser:
const HtmlWebpackPlugin = require("html-webpack-plugin")
module.exports = {
plugins: [
new HtmlWebpackPlugin({
template: "./src/index.html",
minify: {
collapseWhitespace: true,
removeComments: true,
minifyCSS: true,
minifyJS: true,
},
}),
],
}
// Vite — vite-plugin-html:
import { createHtmlPlugin } from "vite-plugin-html"
export default {
plugins: [
createHtmlPlugin({
minify: true, // Uses html-minifier-terser internally
}),
],
}
```
---
## htmlnano
[htmlnano](https://github.com/posthtml/htmlnano) — modular HTML minifier:
### Basic usage
```typescript
import htmlnano from "htmlnano"
const { html } = await htmlnano.process(`
Hello World
`)
// → Hello World
Compare packages
`)
const minified = minify(html, {
do_not_minify_doctype: false,
ensure_spec_compliant_unquoted_attribute_values: false,
keep_closing_tags: false,
keep_html_and_head_opening_tags: false,
keep_spaces_between_attributes: false,
keep_comments: false,
minify_css: true,
minify_js: true,
remove_bangs: false,
remove_processing_instructions: false,
})
console.log(minified.toString())
// → Very aggressively minified output
```
### Configuration options
```typescript
import { minify } from "@nicolo-ribaudo/minify-html"
const result = minify(htmlBuffer, {
// Keep certain elements:
keep_closing_tags: true, // Preserve , , etc.
keep_html_and_head_opening_tags: true,
keep_comments: false,
keep_spaces_between_attributes: false,
// Inline minification:
minify_css: true, // Minify