head to head · open source
esbuild vs cargo-make
esbuild has 40,120 GitHub stars, 1,368 forks, 622 open issues and last shipped 3 months ago. cargo-make has 2,955 stars, 148 forks, 92 open issues and last shipped 9 months ago. esbuild leads on adoption by 1,258% (40,120 vs 2,955 stars). esbuild is written in Go under MIT; cargo-make is written in Rust under Apache-2.0. esbuild has attracted 3% as many forks as stars, cargo-make 5%. esbuild was the more recently maintained of the two, and both are self-hostable with no licence fee.
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
| esbuild | cargo-make | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 40K | ★ 3.0K |
| License | MIT | Apache-2.0 |
| Written in | Go | Rust |
| Last push | 2026-08-09 | 2026-02-05 |
| Forks | ⑂ 1.4K | ⑂ 148 |
| Self-hosting | Yes | Yes |
| Data ownership | Your server | Your server |
pick esbuild if
- You weight community size — 40K stars and counting
- You want the MIT license terms
- Your stack matches Go
- You value the larger contributor base for long-term maintenance
pick cargo-make if
- You want the cargo-make feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the Apache-2.0 license terms
- Your stack matches Rust
- You evaluated both and cargo-make fits your workflow better
About esbuild
Website Getting started Documentation Plugins FAQ Why? Our current build tools for the web are 10 100x slower than they could be: The main goal of the esbuild bundler project is to bring about a new era of build tool performance, and create an easy to use modern bundler along the way. Major features: Extreme speed without needing a cache JavaScript, CSS, TypeScript, and JSX built in A straightforward API for CLI, JS, and Go Bundles ESM and CommonJS modules Bundles CSS including CSS modules Tree shaking, minification, and source maps Local server, watch mode, and plugins Check out the getting started instructions…
read the full esbuild overview →
About cargo-make
cargo make Rust task runner and build tool. Overview Installation Arch Linux Binary Release Usage Simple Example Tasks, Dependencies, and Aliases Commands, Scripts, and Sub Tasks Sub Task Command Script Duckscript Rust Code Cross Platform Shell Other Programming Languages Shebang Support Default Tasks and Extending Extending External Makefiles Automatically Extend Workspace Makefile Load Scripts Predefined Makefiles The Default Task Extending Tasks Task Override Platform Override Extend Attribute Environment Variables Declaration Global Configuration Task Command Line Env File Env Setup Scripts Loading Order…
read the full cargo-make overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is esbuild or cargo-make more popular?
esbuild has 40,120 GitHub stars and cargo-make has 2,955. esbuild has the larger community by that measure.
Are esbuild and cargo-make free?
Both are open source. esbuild is licensed under MIT and cargo-make under Apache-2.0. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between esbuild and cargo-make?
esbuild is written in Go and cargo-make 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, esbuild or cargo-make?
Choose esbuild if you want the larger community (40,120 stars) or its MIT licence terms. Choose cargo-make if its feature set, stack or Apache-2.0 licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.