head to head · open source
esbuild vs retire.js
esbuild has 40,063 GitHub stars, 1,346 forks, 622 open issues and last shipped 1 months ago. retire.js has 4,175 stars, 441 forks, 2 open issues and last shipped yesterday. esbuild leads on adoption by 860% (40,063 vs 4,175 stars). esbuild is written in Go under MIT; retire.js is written in JavaScript under Apache-2.0. esbuild has attracted 3% as many forks as stars, retire.js 11%. retire.js was the more recently maintained of the two, and both are self-hostable with no licence fee. The two share 1 topic tag (javascript), 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 | retire.js | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 40K | ★ 4.2K |
| License | MIT | Apache-2.0 |
| Written in | Go | JavaScript |
| Last push | 2026-08-09 | 2026-09-19 |
| Forks | ⑂ 1.3K | ⑂ 441 |
| 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 retire.js if
- You want the retire.js feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the Apache-2.0 license terms
- Your stack matches JavaScript
- You evaluated both and retire.js 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 retire.js
Retire.js is an open source JavaScript security scanner for web and Node.js projects. It lives in the JavaScript software composition analysis ecosystem and is distributed under the Apache 2.0 license. The project detects JavaScript libraries and Node.js modules with known vulnerabilities, including libraries downloaded into source control rather than listed in a package manifest.
read the full retire.js overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is esbuild or retire.js more popular?
esbuild has 40,063 GitHub stars and retire.js has 4,175. esbuild has the larger community by that measure.
Are esbuild and retire.js free?
Both are open source. esbuild is licensed under MIT and retire.js under Apache-2.0. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between esbuild and retire.js?
esbuild is written in Go and retire.js in JavaScript. 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 retire.js?
Choose esbuild if you want the larger community (40,063 stars) or its MIT licence terms. Choose retire.js if its feature set, stack or Apache-2.0 licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.