head to head · open source
esbuild vs please
esbuild has 40,063 GitHub stars, 1,346 forks, 622 open issues and last shipped 1 months ago. please has 2,612 stars, 221 forks, 120 open issues and last shipped yesterday. esbuild leads on adoption by 1,434% (40,063 vs 2,612 stars). esbuild is written in Go under MIT; please is written in Go under Apache-2.0. esbuild has attracted 3% as many forks as stars, please 8%. please 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 | please | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 40K | ★ 2.6K |
| License | MIT | Apache-2.0 |
| Written in | Go | Go |
| Last push | 2026-08-09 | 2026-09-19 |
| Forks | ⑂ 1.3K | ⑂ 221 |
| 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 please if
- You want the please feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the Apache-2.0 license terms
- Your stack matches Go
- You evaluated both and please 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 please
Please is an open source, cross language build system for reproducible multi language builds. It belongs to the developer tools and build and deployment ecosystem, and its topics place it alongside Bazel, Buck, and Pants as a monorepo build tool. The project is written in Go, licensed under Apache 2.0, and actively supported on Linux, macOS, and FreeBSD.
read the full please overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is esbuild or please more popular?
esbuild has 40,063 GitHub stars and please has 2,612. esbuild has the larger community by that measure.
Are esbuild and please free?
Both are open source. esbuild is licensed under MIT and please under Apache-2.0. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between esbuild and please?
esbuild is written in Go and please in Go. 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 please?
Choose esbuild if you want the larger community (40,063 stars) or its MIT licence terms. Choose please if its feature set, stack or Apache-2.0 licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.