@match vs @include

[gaveitatry2]

Which should I use? I have always used @include because I saw one userscript use it. But is @match better? And if so, why?

[CodFrm]

Although @include is more flexible, we recommend using @match.

@match follows Match patterns, which conforms to browser extension standards and offers better performance.

There is an ESLint rule regarding this: better-use-match.
@include is considered likely to be deprecated by Manifest V3. Although we have other ways to implement it, for the sake of standardization, we recommend using @match.

[cyfung1031]

@include is considered likely to be deprecated by Manifest V3. Although we have other ways to implement it, for the sake of standardization, we recommend using @match.

It does not mean you cannot use @include. It is just not recommended.
In some special cases you might still need @include.

For ESLint, we treat it as a warning to promote the use of @match. You can disable this warning via the customization of ESLint settings.

[cyfung1031]

offers better performance.

We still use the "double checking" in execution stage so the performance might be more or less the same.
But this is insignificant so we don't need to improve it at this moment.

[gaveitatry2]

Thank you. I talked to Copilot and Gemini Pro and Gemini Flash and they all agree that I would get better performance if I use @match instead of @include, whenever I can. I am almost finished editing all of my userscripts to use @match instead. There were only two userscripts that I needed to keep as @include. They were my Amazon and Google userscripts, because I wanted a wildcard for the domain so the userscript would work with .com, .uk, .de, etc.

[cyfung1031]

Which should I use? I have always used @include because I saw one userscript use it. But is @match better? And if so, why?

This applies to all userscript managers. You can find the similar description in TM, VM, FM, etc

Normally you should just use @match
There are many differences but the main difference is, @includes can accept regular expression while @match cannot.

The main reason why @match is preferred because the userscript author must write in a valid pattern to specify the domain which the userscript will apply.

for example, @match https://*.google.com/* means all domains under google.com

it does not accept like @match https://*.g*le.com/* but you can do this in @include