head to head · open source
esbuild vs middy
esbuild has 40,120 GitHub stars, 1,368 forks, 622 open issues and last shipped 3 months ago. middy has 3,905 stars, 398 forks, 9 open issues and last shipped 5 days ago. esbuild leads on adoption by 927% (40,120 vs 3,905 stars). esbuild is written in Go under MIT; middy is written in JavaScript under MIT. esbuild has attracted 3% as many forks as stars, middy 10%. middy was the more recently maintained of the two, and both are self-hostable with no licence fee. The two share 1 topic tag (javascript), so they are genuine substitutes rather than adjacent tools.
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 | middy | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 40K | ★ 3.9K |
| License | MIT | MIT |
| Written in | Go | JavaScript |
| Last push | 2026-08-09 | 2026-10-30 |
| Forks | ⑂ 1.4K | ⑂ 398 |
| 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 middy if
- You want the middy feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the MIT license terms
- Your stack matches JavaScript
- You evaluated both and middy 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 middy
The stylish Node.js middleware engine for AWS Lambda Full documentation: · LLM friendly: llms.txt / llms full.txt What is Middy Middy is a middleware engine for AWS Lambda on Node.js. It lets you keep your handler focused on business logic while attaching reusable steps for parsing, validation, auth, observability, error handling, and AWS service integration. 52 official packages covering API Gateway, SQS, S3, DynamoDB, SNS, EventBridge, Kinesis, Kafka, WebSockets, and more Built in TypeScript types, Node.js = 22, ESM Tiny core (only @middy/util , plus an optional peer dependency for durable functions)…
read the full middy overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is esbuild or middy more popular?
esbuild has 40,120 GitHub stars and middy has 3,905. esbuild has the larger community by that measure.
Are esbuild and middy free?
Both are open source. esbuild is licensed under MIT and middy under MIT. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between esbuild and middy?
esbuild is written in Go and middy in JavaScript. 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 middy?
Choose esbuild if you want the larger community (40,120 stars) or its MIT licence terms. Choose middy if its feature set, stack or MIT licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.