Prettier vs JS Beautify: Which JavaScript Formatter Should You Use?

Prettier and JS Beautify are the two names you'll run into most often when searching for a JavaScript formatter. Both reformat messy code into something readable, but they're built on different philosophies.

Prettier: opinionated, low-configuration

Prettier deliberately limits how much you can configure. You can choose things like tab width, quote style and whether to use semicolons — but you can't fine-tune every spacing rule the way you can in some older formatters. The idea is to end arguments about style entirely: everyone runs the same formatter with the same handful of options, and stops debating the rest.

This makes Prettier fast to adopt on a team, because there's very little to configure or disagree about. It's also become the de facto standard integrated into most modern JavaScript and TypeScript toolchains.

JS Beautify: older, more configurable

JS Beautify (sometimes called js-beautify) predates Prettier and takes the opposite approach: it exposes many more granular options — brace style, operator spacing, how to handle specific statement types — for people who want fine control over the exact output shape. This flexibility can be useful if you're maintaining a legacy codebase with an unusual existing style you need to match closely.

Side-by-side comparison

• Configuration: Prettier — minimal by design. JS Beautify — extensive.
• Consistency: Prettier enforces one shape per input; JS Beautify's flexibility means two teams can configure it very differently.
• Ecosystem: Prettier has broad editor, linter and CI integration. JS Beautify is still supported but less commonly the default in newer projects.
• Learning curve: Prettier — almost none. JS Beautify — more options to learn if you want them.

Which should you pick?

For most new projects, Prettier is the more common choice today, largely because "opinionated and consistent" tends to win over "flexible but requires decisions" once a team grows past one or two people. It's also the formatter powering the formatter on this site, which is why the tool's option set (indent size, quotes, semicolons) mirrors Prettier's own configuration.

If you're curious how formatting fits alongside code-quality tools, read ESLint vs Prettier: Do You Need Both? next, or compare underlying style conventions in Airbnb vs Google vs StandardJS.