head to head · open source
esbuild vs Semaphore
esbuild has 40,063 GitHub stars, 1,346 forks, 622 open issues and last shipped 1 months ago. Semaphore has 1,603 stars, 89 forks, 178 open issues and last shipped 2 days ago. esbuild leads on adoption by 2,399% (40,063 vs 1,603 stars). esbuild is written in Go under MIT; Semaphore is written in Elixir under a custom or non-standard licence. esbuild has attracted 3% as many forks as stars, Semaphore 6%. Semaphore 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 | Semaphore | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 40K | ★ 1.6K |
| License | MIT | Custom / other |
| Written in | Go | Elixir |
| Last push | 2026-08-09 | 2026-09-18 |
| Forks | ⑂ 1.3K | ⑂ 89 |
| 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 Semaphore if
- You want the Semaphore feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the Custom / other license terms
- Your stack matches Elixir
- You evaluated both and Semaphore 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 Semaphore
Semaphore is an open source continuous integration and continuous delivery platform that product teams install on their own infrastructure, or use as a hosted service, to build, test, and deploy software from a YAML based configuration.
read the full Semaphore overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is esbuild or Semaphore more popular?
esbuild has 40,063 GitHub stars and Semaphore has 1,603. esbuild has the larger community by that measure.
Are esbuild and Semaphore free?
Both are open source. esbuild is licensed under MIT, and Semaphore has no licence declared in this registry. Both are free to self-host.
What is the difference between esbuild and Semaphore?
esbuild is written in Go and Semaphore in Elixir. 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 Semaphore?
Choose esbuild if you want the larger community (40,063 stars) or its MIT licence terms. Choose Semaphore if its feature set, stack or Custom / other licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.