head to head · open source
esbuild vs modern.js
esbuild has 40,063 GitHub stars, 1,346 forks, 622 open issues and last shipped 1 months ago. modern.js has 5,043 stars, 421 forks, 66 open issues and last shipped yesterday. esbuild leads on adoption by 694% (40,063 vs 5,043 stars). esbuild is written in Go under MIT; modern.js is written in TypeScript under MIT. esbuild has attracted 3% as many forks as stars, modern.js 8%. modern.js 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.
← all 20902 open source comparisons
Side by side
| esbuild | modern.js | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 40K | ★ 5.0K |
| License | MIT | MIT |
| Written in | Go | TypeScript |
| Last push | 2026-08-09 | 2026-09-19 |
| Forks | ⑂ 1.3K | ⑂ 421 |
| 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 modern.js if
- You want the modern.js feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the MIT license terms
- Your stack matches TypeScript
- You evaluated both and modern.js 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 modern.js
Modern.js is a progressive web framework built on React, written in TypeScript and released under the MIT license. It is developed by ByteDance, where it is used to build upper level frameworks that have supported the development of thousands of web applications. The project lives in the JavaScript and React ecosystem, and it is closely tied to the web infra dev family of tools, which includes Rspack, Rsbuild, Rspress and Rslib. The repository has been active for roughly five years, carries about 5,042 stars and 420 forks, and shows 66 open issues.
read the full modern.js overview →
More in Developer Tools
Related comparisons
More Build & Deployment projects
Compare either of these against the rest of the Build & Deployment field.
Frequently asked questions
Is esbuild or modern.js more popular?
esbuild has 40,063 GitHub stars and modern.js has 5,043. esbuild has the larger community by that measure.
Are esbuild and modern.js free?
Both are open source. esbuild is licensed under MIT and modern.js under MIT. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between esbuild and modern.js?
esbuild is written in Go and modern.js 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 modern.js?
Choose esbuild if you want the larger community (40,063 stars) or its MIT licence terms. Choose modern.js if its feature set, stack or MIT licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.