What is the difference between the ways to include plugins in a project?

Question

Node.js

Many services can be connected in different ways.
For example, you can connect Stylelint to a project: using the API, using the PostCss plugin, using the gulp-stylelint plugin, and, it seems, also using webpack. Is it only convenience that makes the difference between these methods? Does the connection method affect the speed of work? If the result is always the same, what's the difference in connection methods.

Answer 1

Plus, sometimes plugins are processed by the pipe method (streams) - which means they work faster