head to head · open source
gradle vs wxt
gradle has 18,913 GitHub stars, 5,265 forks, 3,494 open issues and last shipped yesterday. wxt has 10,688 stars, 589 forks, 214 open issues and last shipped yesterday. gradle leads on adoption by 77% (18,913 vs 10,688 stars). gradle is written in Groovy under Apache-2.0; wxt is written in TypeScript under MIT. gradle has attracted 28% as many forks as stars, wxt 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 | wxt | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 19K | ★ 11K |
| License | Apache-2.0 | MIT |
| Written in | Groovy | TypeScript |
| Last push | 2026-11-02 | 2026-11-02 |
| Forks | ⑂ 5.3K | ⑂ 589 |
| 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 wxt if
- You want the wxt feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the MIT license terms
- Your stack matches TypeScript
- You evaluated both and wxt fits your workflow better
About gradle
🐘 Gradle Build Tool Gradle is a highly scalable build automation tool designed to handle everything from large, multi project enterprise builds to quick development tasks across various languages. Gradle’s modular, performance oriented architecture seamlessly integrates with development environments, making it a go to solution for building, testing, and deploying applications on Java , Kotlin , Scala , Android , Groovy , C++ , and Swift . For a comprehensive overview, please visit the official Gradle project homepage. 🚀 Getting Started Starting with Gradle is easy with these essential resources. Follow these…
read the full gradle overview →
About wxt
WXT Next gen framework for developing web extensions. ⚡ It's like Nuxt, but for Web Extensions Get Started • Configuration • Examples • Changelog • Discord Demo Quick Start Bootstrap a new project: Or see the installation guide to get started with WXT. Features 🌐 Supports all browsers ✅ Supports both MV2 and MV3 ⚡ Dev mode with HMR & fast reload 📂 File based entrypoints 🚔 TypeScript 🦾 Auto imports 🤖 Automated publishing 🎨 Frontend framework agnostic: works with Vue, React, Svelte, etc 📦 Module system for reusing code between extensions 🖍️ Quickly bootstrap a new project 📏 Bundle analysis Sponsors WXT is…
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Frequently asked questions
Is gradle or wxt more popular?
gradle has 18,913 GitHub stars and wxt has 10,688. gradle has the larger community by that measure.
Are gradle and wxt free?
Both are open source. gradle is licensed under Apache-2.0 and wxt under MIT. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between gradle and wxt?
gradle is written in Groovy and wxt in TypeScript. 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 wxt?
Choose gradle if you want the larger community (18,913 stars) or its Apache-2.0 licence terms. Choose wxt if its feature set, stack or MIT licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.