Glossary
ethers.js
The long-standing JavaScript / TypeScript Ethereum library — extensive feature set, large ecosystem, the default Ethereum client for nearly a decade.
ethers.js, originally by Richard Moore, has been the default JavaScript / TypeScript Ethereum library since its release in 2017. It covers wallet management, contract interaction, ABI encoding/decoding, signed-typed-data (EIP-712), and JSON-RPC over multiple providers (Infura, Alchemy, custom).
ethers v5 dominated through 2020–2023; ethers v6 (modern syntax, BigInt instead of BigNumber) shipped in 2023. The library has since been challenged by viem in new projects, but remains ubiquitous in production Ethereum code.