head to head · open source
esbuild vs paasta
esbuild has 40,120 GitHub stars, 1,368 forks, 622 open issues and last shipped 3 months ago. paasta has 1,732 stars, 250 forks, 112 open issues and last shipped 2 days ago. esbuild leads on adoption by 2,216% (40,120 vs 1,732 stars). esbuild is written in Go under MIT; paasta is written in Python under Apache-2.0. esbuild has attracted 3% as many forks as stars, paasta 14%. paasta was the more recently maintained of the two, and both are self-hostable with no licence fee.
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 | paasta | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 40K | ★ 1.7K |
| License | MIT | Apache-2.0 |
| Written in | Go | Python |
| Last push | 2026-08-09 | 2026-11-03 |
| Forks | ⑂ 1.4K | ⑂ 250 |
| 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 paasta if
- You want the paasta feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the Apache-2.0 license terms
- Your stack matches Python
- You evaluated both and paasta 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 paasta
PaaSTA Build, Deploy, Connect, and Monitor Services PaaSTA is a highly available, distributed system for building, deploying, and running services using containers and Kubernetes. PaaSTA has been running production services at Yelp since 2016. It was originally designed to run on top of Apache Mesos but has subsequently been updated to use Kubernetes. Over time the features and functionality that PaaSTA provides have increased but the principal design remains the same. PaaSTA aims to take a declarative description of the services that teams need to run and then ensures that those services are deployed safely…
read the full paasta overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is esbuild or paasta more popular?
esbuild has 40,120 GitHub stars and paasta has 1,732. esbuild has the larger community by that measure.
Are esbuild and paasta free?
Both are open source. esbuild is licensed under MIT and paasta under Apache-2.0. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between esbuild and paasta?
esbuild is written in Go and paasta in Python. 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 paasta?
Choose esbuild if you want the larger community (40,120 stars) or its MIT licence terms. Choose paasta if its feature set, stack or Apache-2.0 licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.