head to head · open source
gradle vs Bear
gradle has 18,847 GitHub stars, 5,335 forks, 3,494 open issues and last shipped yesterday. Bear has 6,493 stars, 369 forks, 0 open issues and last shipped 3 days ago. gradle leads on adoption by 190% (18,847 vs 6,493 stars). gradle is written in Groovy under Apache-2.0; Bear is written in Rust under GPL-3.0. gradle has attracted 28% as many forks as stars, Bear 6%. gradle was the more recently maintained of the two, and both are self-hostable with no licence fee. The two share 1 topic tag (build-tool), 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
| gradle | Bear | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 19K | ★ 6.5K |
| License | Apache-2.0 | GPL-3.0 |
| Written in | Groovy | Rust |
| Last push | 2026-09-20 | 2026-09-18 |
| Forks | ⑂ 5.3K | ⑂ 369 |
| Self-hosting | Yes | Yes |
| Data ownership | Your server | Your server |
pick gradle if
- You weight community size — 19K stars and counting
- You want the Apache-2.0 license terms
- Your stack matches Groovy
- You value the larger contributor base for long-term maintenance
pick Bear if
- You want the Bear feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the GPL-3.0 license terms
- Your stack matches Rust
- You evaluated both and Bear fits your workflow better
About gradle
Gradle is an open source build automation tool distributed under the Apache 2.0 license, hosted at gradle.org and developed in the Groovy language. It is described as a highly scalable build automation tool designed to handle everything from large, multi project enterprise builds to quick development tasks across various languages. Its modular, performance oriented architecture integrates with development environments, and the project has grown over roughly seventeen years to a repository with 18,841 stars, 5,335 forks, and 3,494 open issues. It lives in the JVM tooling ecosystem, with topics covering build tool,…
read the full gradle overview →
About Bear
Bear is a GPL 3.0, Rust based command line tool that produces a compile commands.json compilation database for any C or C++ build by recording the compiler invocations that run during it, and it is aimed at developers, code explorers, and CI jobs whose build systems cannot emit that database on their own.
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Frequently asked questions
Is gradle or Bear more popular?
gradle has 18,847 GitHub stars and Bear has 6,493. gradle has the larger community by that measure.
Are gradle and Bear free?
Both are open source. gradle is licensed under Apache-2.0 and Bear under GPL-3.0. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between gradle and Bear?
gradle is written in Groovy and Bear 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, gradle or Bear?
Choose gradle if you want the larger community (18,847 stars) or its Apache-2.0 licence terms. Choose Bear if its feature set, stack or GPL-3.0 licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.