# The Absolute Best Way to Run Multiple npm Scripts in Parallel in 2022

Original: https://swyx.io/parallel-npm-scripts
Published: 2022-10-11

> Just a quick tutorial and explanation of how best to set up concurrently with named and colored log output since I had to look it up today.

> **Why do you want to run multiple scripts?** Multiple reasons, for example you want to run a backend server process and a frontend app process, and kick them off with one command. You can't write `npm start frontend && npm start backend` because `&&` requires the first process to terminate first. (I think) You also don't want to write `npm start frontend & npm start backend` because if one process ends for whatever reason you want the other to end as well (makes it easier to blindly Ctrl+C and rerun the same command when you run into trouble).

There are two leaders in the parallel npm scripts game: `concurrently` and `npm-run-all`:

https://npmcharts.com/compare/concurrently,npm-run-all?interval=30

![image](https://user-images.githubusercontent.com/6764957/195207504-3943fb5f-a98c-4664-b469-16cb44e10bba.png)

Both have very similar features but we will just focus on `concurrently` as it is sliiiightly more flexible and nicely documented (this is not a strong opinion).

## Step 1 - Install the thing

Do I really need to explain?

```bash
npm i -D concurrently
```

## Step 2 - Setup Concurrently

Assuming you have two scripts in package.json you want to run concurrently:

```js
	"scripts": {
		"dev": "vite dev",
		"story:dev": "histoire dev",
		"start": "concurrently \"npm run dev\" \"npm run story:dev\"",
	}
```

Now you can start them with `npm start`!

![image](https://user-images.githubusercontent.com/6764957/195208086-b3a14445-534b-4a62-b63a-4049ada24b13.png)

But wait, this log output is a bit hard to read. Can we do better?

This is the beautiful third step.

## Step 3 - Name and Color


```js
	"scripts": {
		// omitted...
		"start": "concurrently --names \"APP,HISTOIRE\" -c \"bgBlue.bold,bgMagenta.bold\" \"npm run dev\" \"npm run story:dev\"",
	}
```

![image](https://user-images.githubusercontent.com/6764957/195208385-8b741292-7303-4e8d-b927-b3ee20a2d1a4.png)

Now you can tell at a glance where logs are coming from!