head to head · open source
esbuild vs chalice
esbuild has 40,120 GitHub stars, 1,368 forks, 622 open issues and last shipped 3 months ago. chalice has 11,061 stars, 1,018 forks, 495 open issues and last shipped 8 days ago. esbuild leads on adoption by 263% (40,120 vs 11,061 stars). esbuild is written in Go under MIT; chalice is written in Python under Apache-2.0. esbuild has attracted 3% as many forks as stars, chalice 9%. chalice 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 | chalice | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 40K | ★ 11K |
| License | MIT | Apache-2.0 |
| Written in | Go | Python |
| Last push | 2026-08-09 | 2026-10-28 |
| Forks | ⑂ 1.4K | ⑂ 1.0K |
| 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 chalice if
- You want the chalice feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the Apache-2.0 license terms
- Your stack matches Python
- You evaluated both and chalice 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 chalice
=========== AWS Chalice =========== .. image:: :target: :alt: Package Version .. image:: :target: :alt: Python Versions .. image:: :target: :alt: Documentation Status .. image:: :target: :alt: License .. image:: :target: :alt: Chalice Logo Chalice is a framework for writing serverless apps in Python. It allows you to quickly create and deploy applications that use AWS Lambda. It provides: A command line tool for creating, deploying, and managing your app A decorator based API for integrating with Amazon API Gateway, Amazon S3, Amazon SNS, Amazon SQS, and other AWS services. Automatic IAM policy generation You…
read the full chalice overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is esbuild or chalice more popular?
esbuild has 40,120 GitHub stars and chalice has 11,061. esbuild has the larger community by that measure.
Are esbuild and chalice free?
Both are open source. esbuild is licensed under MIT and chalice under Apache-2.0. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between esbuild and chalice?
esbuild is written in Go and chalice in Python. 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 chalice?
Choose esbuild if you want the larger community (40,120 stars) or its MIT licence terms. Choose chalice if its feature set, stack or Apache-2.0 licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.