head to head · open source
esbuild vs middy
esbuild has 40,063 GitHub stars, 1,346 forks, 622 open issues and last shipped 1 months ago. middy has 3,904 stars, 399 forks, 9 open issues and last shipped yesterday. esbuild leads on adoption by 926% (40,063 vs 3,904 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 | 2026-09-19 |
| Forks | ⑂ 1.3K | ⑂ 399 |
| 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
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 middy
Middy middleware engine AWS Lambda Node.js. Handler focus business logic. Attach reusable steps parsing, validation, auth, observability, error handling, AWS service integration. Ecosystem JavaScript TypeScript serverless. Official packages cover Lambda event sources and HTTP services. Project MIT licensed. Homepage middy.js.org. Docs cover getting started, official middlewares, event types, routers, custom middlewares, recipes, FAQ. GitHub metadata lists 3904 stars, 399 forks, 9 open issues, 9 year repo age, and last push 2026 09 12T15:33:46Z.
read the full middy overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is esbuild or middy more popular?
esbuild has 40,063 GitHub stars and middy has 3,904. 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 (40,063 stars) or its MIT licence terms. Choose middy if its feature set, stack or MIT licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.