head to head · open source
esbuild vs modern.js
esbuild has 40,120 GitHub stars, 1,368 forks, 622 open issues and last shipped 3 months ago. modern.js has 5,049 stars, 425 forks, 66 open issues and last shipped today. esbuild leads on adoption by 695% (40,120 vs 5,049 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.
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Side by side
| esbuild | modern.js | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 40K | ★ 5.0K |
| License | MIT | MIT |
| Written in | Go | TypeScript |
| Last push | 2026-08-09 | 2026-11-04 |
| Forks | ⑂ 1.4K | ⑂ 425 |
| 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
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 modern.js
Modern.js Inspire creativity in modern web development. English 简体中文 Introduction The Modern.js framework is a progressive web framework based on React. At ByteDance, we use Modern.js to build upper level frameworks that have supported the development of thousands of web applications. When developing React applications, developers usually need to design implementation plans for certain features or use other libraries and frameworks to solve these problems. Modern.js supports all configurations and tools needed by React applications, and has built in additional features and optimizations. Developers can use React…
read the full modern.js overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is esbuild or modern.js more popular?
esbuild has 40,120 GitHub stars and modern.js has 5,049. 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 (40,120 stars) or its MIT licence terms. Choose modern.js if its feature set, stack or MIT licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.