head to head · open source
esbuild vs erlang.mk
esbuild has 40,063 GitHub stars, 1,346 forks, 622 open issues and last shipped 1 months ago. erlang.mk has 587 stars, 237 forks, 41 open issues and last shipped yesterday. esbuild leads on adoption by 6,725% (40,063 vs 587 stars). esbuild is written in Go under MIT; erlang.mk is written in Makefile under ISC. esbuild has attracted 3% as many forks as stars, erlang.mk 40%. erlang.mk 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 | erlang.mk | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 40K | ★ 587 |
| License | MIT | ISC |
| Written in | Go | Makefile |
| Last push | 2026-08-09 | 2026-09-19 |
| Forks | ⑂ 1.3K | ⑂ 237 |
| 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 erlang.mk if
- You want the erlang.mk feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the ISC license terms
- Your stack matches Makefile
- You evaluated both and erlang.mk fits your workflow better
About esbuild
esbuild is an MIT licensed, Go based bundler for the web that compiles JavaScript, CSS, TypeScript, and JSX in one tool, aimed at front end developers and teams whose current web build pipelines are slower than they need to be.
read the full esbuild overview →
About erlang.mk
erlang.mk is a Makefile based build tool for Erlang projects, intended for Erlang developers and teams who want dependency fetching, compilation, and release work driven by a single include erlang.mk line rather than a separate build system.
read the full erlang.mk overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is esbuild or erlang.mk more popular?
esbuild has 40,063 GitHub stars and erlang.mk has 587. esbuild has the larger community by that measure.
Are esbuild and erlang.mk free?
Both are open source. esbuild is licensed under MIT and erlang.mk under ISC. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between esbuild and erlang.mk?
esbuild is written in Go and erlang.mk in Makefile. 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 erlang.mk?
Choose esbuild if you want the larger community (40,063 stars) or its MIT licence terms. Choose erlang.mk if its feature set, stack or ISC licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.