head to head · open source
esbuild vs midway
esbuild has 40,063 GitHub stars, 1,346 forks, 622 open issues and last shipped 1 months ago. midway has 7,744 stars, 584 forks, 118 open issues and last shipped yesterday. esbuild leads on adoption by 417% (40,063 vs 7,744 stars). esbuild is written in Go under MIT; midway is written in TypeScript under MIT. esbuild has attracted 3% as many forks as stars, midway 8%. midway was the more recently maintained of the two, and both are self-hostable with no licence fee. The two share 1 topic tag (react), 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 | midway | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 40K | ★ 7.7K |
| License | MIT | MIT |
| Written in | Go | TypeScript |
| Last push | 2026-08-09 | 2026-09-19 |
| Forks | ⑂ 1.3K | ⑂ 584 |
| 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 midway if
- You want the midway feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the MIT license terms
- Your stack matches TypeScript
- You evaluated both and midway 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 midway
Midway is an open source Node.js framework for building serverless services, traditional applications, microservices, and mini program backends. It is written in TypeScript and released under the MIT license, and it has been developed for roughly eight years, with the most recent push in September 2026. The project lives in the Node.js ecosystem and positions itself as a cloud integrated framework for front end and full stack developers, with integrations for React and Vue.
read the full midway overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is esbuild or midway more popular?
esbuild has 40,063 GitHub stars and midway has 7,744. esbuild has the larger community by that measure.
Are esbuild and midway free?
Both are open source. esbuild is licensed under MIT and midway under MIT. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between esbuild and midway?
esbuild is written in Go and midway in TypeScript. 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 midway?
Choose esbuild if you want the larger community (40,063 stars) or its MIT licence terms. Choose midway if its feature set, stack or MIT licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.