head to head · open source
esbuild vs Ceedling
esbuild has 40,120 GitHub stars, 1,368 forks, 622 open issues and last shipped 3 months ago. Ceedling has 862 stars, 274 forks, 248 open issues and last shipped 5 days ago. esbuild leads on adoption by 4,554% (40,120 vs 862 stars). esbuild is written in Go under MIT; Ceedling is written in Ruby under MIT. esbuild has attracted 3% as many forks as stars, Ceedling 32%. Ceedling 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 | Ceedling | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 40K | ★ 862 |
| License | MIT | MIT |
| Written in | Go | Ruby |
| Last push | 2026-08-09 | 2026-10-31 |
| Forks | ⑂ 1.4K | ⑂ 274 |
| 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 Ceedling if
- You want the Ceedling feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the MIT license terms
- Your stack matches Ruby
- You evaluated both and Ceedling 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 Ceedling
Ceedling ======== Ceedling 1.1.8 is the latest and greatest. See [ Release Notes ][release notes], Changelog , [ Breaking Changes ][breaking changes], and [ Known Issues ][known issues]. See 🚀 Getting Started for installation and new project set up. New goodies in 1.1.x: A [Partial][partials docs] allows a test to mix mocked and real functions from the same source module in a single test file and enables testing of static and inline functions without modifying source code. Ceedling is now complemented by a full, searchable [documentation site][ceedling docs site] available both online and as a local bundle…
read the full Ceedling overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is esbuild or Ceedling more popular?
esbuild has 40,120 GitHub stars and Ceedling has 862. esbuild has the larger community by that measure.
Are esbuild and Ceedling free?
Both are open source. esbuild is licensed under MIT and Ceedling under MIT. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between esbuild and Ceedling?
esbuild is written in Go and Ceedling in Ruby. 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 Ceedling?
Choose esbuild if you want the larger community (40,120 stars) or its MIT licence terms. Choose Ceedling if its feature set, stack or MIT licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.