head to head · open source
esbuild vs corrosion
esbuild has 40,122 GitHub stars, 1,368 forks, 622 open issues and last shipped 3 months ago. corrosion has 1,519 stars, 158 forks, 71 open issues and last shipped 7 days ago. esbuild leads on adoption by 2,541% (40,122 vs 1,519 stars). esbuild is written in Go under MIT; corrosion is written in CMake under MIT. esbuild has attracted 3% as many forks as stars, corrosion 10%. corrosion 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 | corrosion | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 40K | ★ 1.5K |
| License | MIT | MIT |
| Written in | Go | CMake |
| Last push | 2026-08-09 | 2026-10-30 |
| Forks | ⑂ 1.4K | ⑂ 158 |
| 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 corrosion if
- You want the corrosion feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the MIT license terms
- Your stack matches CMake
- You evaluated both and corrosion 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 corrosion
Corrosion Corrosion, formerly known as cmake cargo, is a tool for integrating Rust into an existing CMake project. Corrosion can automatically import executables, static libraries, and dynamic libraries from a workspace or package manifest ( Cargo.toml file). Features Automatic Import of Executable, Static, and Shared Libraries from Rust Crate Easy Installation of Rust Executables Trivially Link Rust Executables to C/C++ Libraries in Tree Multi Config Generator Support Simple Cross Compilation Sample Usage with FetchContent Using the CMake FetchContent module allows you to easily integrate corrosion into your…
read the full corrosion overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is esbuild or corrosion more popular?
esbuild has 40,122 GitHub stars and corrosion has 1,519. esbuild has the larger community by that measure.
Are esbuild and corrosion free?
Both are open source. esbuild is licensed under MIT and corrosion under MIT. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between esbuild and corrosion?
esbuild is written in Go and corrosion in CMake. 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 corrosion?
Choose esbuild if you want the larger community (40,122 stars) or its MIT licence terms. Choose corrosion if its feature set, stack or MIT licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.