head to head · open source
esbuild vs piku
esbuild has 40,120 GitHub stars, 1,368 forks, 622 open issues and last shipped 3 months ago. piku has 6,603 stars, 157 forks, 6 open issues and last shipped 2 months ago. esbuild leads on adoption by 508% (40,120 vs 6,603 stars). esbuild is written in Go under MIT; piku is written in Python under MIT. esbuild has attracted 3% as many forks as stars, piku 2%. piku 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 | piku | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 40K | ★ 6.6K |
| License | MIT | MIT |
| Written in | Go | Python |
| Last push | 2026-08-09 | 2026-09-04 |
| Forks | ⑂ 1.4K | ⑂ 157 |
| 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 piku if
- You want the piku feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the MIT license terms
- Your stack matches Python
- You evaluated both and piku 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 piku
piku , inspired by dokku , allows you do git push deployments to your own servers, no matter how small they are. Demo Documentation: Install Using Procfile ENV Examples Roadmap Contributing LinuxConf Talk Fast Web App Tutorial Discussion Forum Note to security “researchers” please stop submitting fake, AI generated SSH ”vulnerabilities” and begging for CVEs to boost your credibility. We know piku allows you to run arbitrary commands (it is actually a CLI feature), and you are just wasting our time. Use AI to improve this instead. Install TL;DR: There are also other installation methods available, including cloud…
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Frequently asked questions
Is esbuild or piku more popular?
esbuild has 40,120 GitHub stars and piku has 6,603. esbuild has the larger community by that measure.
Are esbuild and piku free?
Both are open source. esbuild is licensed under MIT and piku under MIT. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between esbuild and piku?
esbuild is written in Go and piku 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 piku?
Choose esbuild if you want the larger community (40,120 stars) or its MIT licence terms. Choose piku if its feature set, stack or MIT licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.