head to head · open source
gradle vs xmake
gradle has 18,845 GitHub stars, 5,334 forks, 3,494 open issues and last shipped yesterday. xmake has 12,220 stars, 954 forks, 255 open issues and last shipped 2 days ago. gradle leads on adoption by 54% (18,845 vs 12,220 stars). gradle is written in Groovy under Apache-2.0; xmake is written in Lua under Apache-2.0. gradle has attracted 28% as many forks as stars, xmake 8%. 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 | xmake | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 19K | ★ 12K |
| License | Apache-2.0 | Apache-2.0 |
| Written in | Groovy | Lua |
| Last push | 2026-09-17 | 2026-09-16 |
| Forks | ⑂ 5.3K | ⑂ 954 |
| 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 xmake if
- You want the xmake feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the Apache-2.0 license terms
- Your stack matches Lua
- You evaluated both and xmake 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 xmake
Xmake is a cross platform build utility and package manager, written in Lua and licensed under Apache 2.0, that takes a single xmake.lua project file and turns it into builds for desktop, mobile, BSD, Wasm and other targets — it is aimed at C, C++, Objective C and mixed toolchain developers who want Make/Ninja style building, CMake/Meson style project generation, and Vcpkg/Conan style dependency handling from one tool.
read the full xmake overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is gradle or xmake more popular?
gradle has 18,845 GitHub stars and xmake has 12,220. gradle has the larger community by that measure.
Are gradle and xmake free?
Both are open source. gradle is licensed under Apache-2.0 and xmake under Apache-2.0. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between gradle and xmake?
gradle is written in Groovy and xmake in Lua. 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 xmake?
Choose gradle if you want the larger community (18,845 stars) or its Apache-2.0 licence terms. Choose xmake if its feature set, stack or Apache-2.0 licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.