head to head · open source
esbuild vs trunk
esbuild has 40,120 GitHub stars, 1,368 forks, 622 open issues and last shipped 3 months ago. trunk has 4,422 stars, 324 forks, 136 open issues and last shipped 2 days ago. esbuild leads on adoption by 807% (40,120 vs 4,422 stars). esbuild is written in Go under MIT; trunk is written in Rust under Apache-2.0. esbuild has attracted 3% as many forks as stars, trunk 7%. trunk was the more recently maintained of the two, and both are self-hostable with no licence fee. The two share 2 topic tags (bundler, compiler), 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 | trunk | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 40K | ★ 4.4K |
| License | MIT | Apache-2.0 |
| Written in | Go | Rust |
| Last push | 2026-08-09 | 2026-11-03 |
| Forks | ⑂ 1.4K | ⑂ 324 |
| 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 trunk if
- You want the trunk feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the Apache-2.0 license terms
- Your stack matches Rust
- You evaluated both and trunk 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 trunk
Trunk Build, bundle & ship your Rust WASM application to the web. ”Pack your things, we’re going on an adventure!” Ferris Trunk is a WASM web application bundler for Rust. Trunk uses a simple, optional config pattern for building & bundling WASM, JS snippets & other assets (images, css, scss) via a source HTML file. 📦 Dev server Trunk ships with a built in server for rapid development workflows, as well as support for HTTP & WebSocket proxies. 🏗 Change detection Trunk watches your application for changes and triggers builds for you, including automatic browser reloading. Getting Started Head on over to the…
read the full trunk overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is esbuild or trunk more popular?
esbuild has 40,120 GitHub stars and trunk has 4,422. esbuild has the larger community by that measure.
Are esbuild and trunk free?
Both are open source. esbuild is licensed under MIT and trunk under Apache-2.0. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between esbuild and trunk?
esbuild is written in Go and trunk 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 trunk?
Choose esbuild if you want the larger community (40,120 stars) or its MIT licence terms. Choose trunk if its feature set, stack or Apache-2.0 licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.