head to head · open source
esbuild vs paasta
esbuild has 40,063 GitHub stars, 1,346 forks, 622 open issues and last shipped 1 months ago. paasta has 1,731 stars, 251 forks, 112 open issues and last shipped 2 days ago. esbuild leads on adoption by 2,214% (40,063 vs 1,731 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 15%. 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 | 2026-09-18 |
| Forks | ⑂ 1.3K | ⑂ 251 |
| 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
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 paasta
PaaSTA is an open source, distributed platform as a service written in Python and released under the Apache 2.0 license. It lives in the Kubernetes and Docker infrastructure ecosystem, and it was originally designed for Apache Mesos before being updated to use Kubernetes.
read the full paasta overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is esbuild or paasta more popular?
esbuild has 40,063 GitHub stars and paasta has 1,731. 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 (40,063 stars) or its MIT licence terms. Choose paasta if its feature set, stack or Apache-2.0 licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.