head to head · open source
esbuild vs rspack
esbuild has 40,122 GitHub stars, 1,367 forks, 622 open issues and last shipped 3 months ago. rspack has 12,970 stars, 879 forks, 224 open issues and last shipped yesterday. esbuild leads on adoption by 209% (40,122 vs 12,970 stars). esbuild is written in Go under MIT; rspack is written in Rust under MIT. esbuild has attracted 3% as many forks as stars, rspack 7%. rspack was the more recently maintained of the two, and both are self-hostable with no licence fee. The two share 6 topic tags (bundler, compiler, esm, 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 | rspack | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 40K | ★ 13K |
| License | MIT | MIT |
| Written in | Go | Rust |
| Last push | 2026-08-09 | 2026-11-02 |
| Forks | ⑂ 1.4K | ⑂ 879 |
| 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 rspack if
- You want the rspack feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the MIT license terms
- Your stack matches Rust
- You evaluated both and rspack 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 rspack
Rspack English 简体中文 Rspack is a fast Rust based bundler for the web. It modernizes the webpack API to enable seamless replacement of webpack while delivering lightning fast build speeds. ✨ Features 🚀 Fast Startup : Based on Rust, the build speed is extremely fast, bringing you the ultimate development experience. ⚡ Lightning HMR : With a built in incremental compilation mechanism, HMR is extremely fast and fully capable of developing large scale projects. 📦 Webpack Compatible : Compatible with plugins and loaders in the webpack ecosystem, seamlessly integrating excellent libraries built by the community. 🎨…
read the full rspack overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is esbuild or rspack more popular?
esbuild has 40,122 GitHub stars and rspack has 12,970. esbuild has the larger community by that measure.
Are esbuild and rspack free?
Both are open source. esbuild is licensed under MIT and rspack under MIT. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between esbuild and rspack?
esbuild is written in Go and rspack in Rust. 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 rspack?
Choose esbuild if you want the larger community (40,122 stars) or its MIT licence terms. Choose rspack if its feature set, stack or MIT licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.