Performance Analysis of Next.js Development Toolchains on Apple Silicon (ARM64)

Research Context As modern web applications grow in complexity, development-time toolchain performance can significantly affect developer iteration speed. This work presents a controlled benchmark study comparing the development-mode performance of Next.js's legacy Webpack-based toolchain and the Rust-based Turbopack on Apple Silicon (ARM64) hardware. Abstract This artifact accompanies an exploratory benchmark study based on N=60 automated measurements across two synthetic project complexity levels. The study focuses on developer-facing metrics, specifically cold start time and Hot Module Replacement (HMR) latency. Within the tested configuration, Turbopack exhibits substantially lower baseline HMR latency and shows relatively stable HMR behavior as project complexity increases, while the Webpack-based toolchain demonstrates increased latency under the same conditions. These results are environment- and configuration-specific and are not intended as general performance claims. Key Observations Baseline Performance: In the baseline project configuration, Turbopack demonstrates approximately 6.18× lower observed HMR latency compared to the Webpack-based toolchain. Observed Scaling Trend: As project complexity increases within the tested range, Webpack HMR latency increases, while Turbopack HMR latency remains relatively stable. Contents FULL_PAPER.pdf: Complete technical report describing experimental design, methodology, statistical summaries, and visual analysis. release_artifact.zip: Reproducible benchmark source code, automation scripts, and raw measurement logs (N=60).