Skip to content
JS
Comparison

leven vs js-levenshtein

Strings and textPackage data 25 Sept 2026
levenv4.1.0, 11 Sept 2025

Measure the difference between two strings using the Levenshtein distance algorithm

$ npm install leven
js-levenshteinv1.1.6, 10 Jan 2019

The most efficient JS implementation calculating the Levenshtein distance, i.e. the difference between two strings.

$ npm install js-levenshtein
Metriclevenjs-levenshteinDifference
Weekly downloads49,019,1788,602,467leven 5.7x higher
12-month download growth+53%+102%js-levenshtein +49 pts
Gzip size---
Minified size---
Dependencies00Same
Unpacked size10.0 kB5.5 kBjs-levenshtein 1.8x smaller
Latest release4.1.0, 11 Sept 20251.1.6, 10 Jan 2019leven 6.7 years more recent
Releases, last 12 months00Same
First published9 Aug 201414 May 2017leven 2.8 years earlier
GitHub stars734512leven +43%
Open issues04js-levenshtein 4 more
Open pull requests03js-levenshtein 3 more
Contributors8--
Commits, last 52 weeks10leven higher
TypeScript typesBundledNoneDiffers
Module formatESM only-Differs
Runtimes---
LicenseMITMITSame

Green marks the smaller size or the more recent release. Bold marks the higher count, with no judgement implied. Sizes are for the whole package per Bundlephobia. Growth compares the average of the last 4 weeks with the first 4 weeks of the 52-week series.

leven49m latest weekjs-levenshtein8.6m latest week
Week of 23 Sept 2025Week of 15 Sept 2026
Weekly npm downloads, 52 weeks. Y axis starts at zero. Values are not smoothed.

leven

Major versions
  1. 1.0.09 Aug 2014
  2. 2.0.07 Sept 2015
  3. 3.0.012 Mar 2019
  4. 4.0.010 Aug 2021
Last 5 releases
  1. 4.1.011 Sept 2025
  2. 4.0.010 Aug 2021
  3. 3.1.04 Apr 2019
  4. 3.0.012 Mar 2019
  5. 2.1.018 Feb 2017
9 releases in total, 0 in the last 12 months

js-levenshtein

Major versions
  1. 1.0.014 May 2017
Last 5 releases
  1. 1.1.610 Jan 2019
  2. 1.1.58 Jan 2019
  3. 1.1.427 Sept 2018
  4. 1.1.31 Oct 2017
  5. 1.1.219 Jun 2017
8 releases in total, 0 in the last 12 months
leven

-

js-levenshtein

-

leven

-

js-levenshtein

-

  • Need no runtime dependenciesBoth
  • Need both ESM and CommonJS entry pointsNeither (leven: ESM only; js-levenshtein: -)
  • Need to load it with require()Neither
  • Need TypeScript types in the package itselfleven (leven: Bundled; js-levenshtein: None)
  • Node.js version requirementleven: ^12.20.0 || ^14.13.1 || >=16.0.0; js-levenshtein: >=0.10.0 (engines field in package.json)
  • Need the more recent releaseleven (4.1.0 on 11 Sept 2025 vs 1.1.6 on 10 Jan 2019)
  • Higher weekly npm downloadsleven (49m vs 8.6m)

Each line is generated from the data above.

leven: leven npm registry, leven npm downloads, leven GitHub. Data fetched 25 Sept 2026.

Indexability: Indexed.