head to head · open source
lerna vs nx
lerna has 36,053 GitHub stars, 2,265 forks, 287 open issues and last shipped yesterday. nx has 29,352 stars, 3,003 forks, 490 open issues and last shipped today. lerna leads on adoption by 23% (36,053 vs 29,352 stars). lerna is written in TypeScript under MIT; nx is written in TypeScript under MIT. lerna has attracted 6% as many forks as stars, nx 10%. nx was the more recently maintained of the two, and both are self-hostable with no licence fee. The two share 1 topic tag (monorepo), 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
| lerna | nx | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 36K | ★ 29K |
| License | MIT | MIT |
| Written in | TypeScript | TypeScript |
| Last push | 2026-09-17 | 2026-09-18 |
| Forks | ⑂ 2.3K | ⑂ 3.0K |
| Self-hosting | Yes | Yes |
| Data ownership | Your server | Your server |
pick lerna if
- You weight community size — 36K stars and counting
- You want the MIT license terms
- Your stack matches TypeScript
- You value the larger contributor base for long-term maintenance
pick nx if
- You want the nx feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the MIT license terms
- Your stack matches TypeScript
- You evaluated both and nx fits your workflow better
About lerna
Lerna is a fast, modern build system for managing and publishing multiple JavaScript/TypeScript packages from the same repository, aimed at teams that maintain monorepos and publish packages to npm.
read the full lerna overview →
About nx
Nx is an MIT licensed monorepo platform for TypeScript and polyglot codebases that caches unchanged work, runs only affected tasks, and ships an integrated CI solution aimed at both developers and autonomous AI agents.
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Frequently asked questions
Is lerna or nx more popular?
lerna has 36,053 GitHub stars and nx has 29,352. lerna has the larger community by that measure.
Are lerna and nx free?
Both are open source. lerna is licensed under MIT and nx under MIT. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between lerna and nx?
lerna is written in TypeScript and nx 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, lerna or nx?
Choose lerna if you want the larger community (36,053 stars) or its MIT licence terms. Choose nx if its feature set, stack or MIT licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.