head to head · open source
webpack vs Bear
webpack has 65,943 GitHub stars, 9,547 forks, 123 open issues and last shipped today. Bear has 6,493 stars, 369 forks, 0 open issues and last shipped 2 days ago. webpack leads on adoption by 916% (65,943 vs 6,493 stars). webpack is written in JavaScript under MIT; Bear is written in Rust under GPL-3.0. webpack has attracted 14% as many forks as stars, Bear 6%. webpack was the more recently maintained of the two, and both are self-hostable with no licence fee. The two share 1 topic tag (build-tool), so they are genuine substitutes rather than adjacent tools.
Two open source projects, one decision. Both are free and self-hostable — the differences are community size, license terms, language stack and release pace.
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Side by side
| webpack | Bear | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 66K | ★ 6.5K |
| License | MIT | GPL-3.0 |
| Written in | JavaScript | Rust |
| Last push | 2026-09-20 | 2026-09-18 |
| Forks | ⑂ 9.5K | ⑂ 369 |
| Self-hosting | Yes | Yes |
| Data ownership | Your server | Your server |
pick webpack if
- You weight community size — 66K stars and counting
- You want the MIT license terms
- Your stack matches JavaScript
- You value the larger contributor base for long-term maintenance
pick Bear if
- You want the Bear feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the GPL-3.0 license terms
- Your stack matches Rust
- You evaluated both and Bear fits your workflow better
About webpack
webpack is an open source module bundler for JavaScript and related assets, distributed under the MIT license and published to npm. It lives in the JavaScript ecosystem, where the README describes its main purpose as bundling JavaScript files for use in a browser, while also being capable of transforming, bundling, or packaging just about any resource or asset. Loaders let modules arrive in many forms — CommonJS, AMD, ES6 modules, CSS, images, JSON, CoffeeScript, LESS, or custom formats — and the plugin system extends what the build can do.
read the full webpack overview →
About Bear
Bear is a GPL 3.0, Rust based command line tool that produces a compile commands.json compilation database for any C or C++ build by recording the compiler invocations that run during it, and it is aimed at developers, code explorers, and CI jobs whose build systems cannot emit that database on their own.
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Frequently asked questions
Is webpack or Bear more popular?
webpack has 65,943 GitHub stars and Bear has 6,493. webpack has the larger community by that measure.
Are webpack and Bear free?
Both are open source. webpack is licensed under MIT and Bear under GPL-3.0. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between webpack and Bear?
webpack is written in JavaScript and Bear in Rust. The practical differences are community size, licence terms, language stack and release cadence — all compared in the table above.
Which should I choose, webpack or Bear?
Choose webpack if you want the larger community (65,943 stars) or its MIT licence terms. Choose Bear if its feature set, stack or GPL-3.0 licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.