head to head · open source
lerna vs turborepo
lerna has 36,041 GitHub stars, 2,269 forks, 287 open issues and last shipped 3 days ago. turborepo has 31,295 stars, 2,477 forks, 13 open issues and last shipped yesterday. lerna leads on adoption by 15% (36,041 vs 31,295 stars). lerna is written in TypeScript under MIT; turborepo is written in Rust under MIT. lerna has attracted 6% as many forks as stars, turborepo 8%. turborepo 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 | turborepo | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 36K | ★ 31K |
| License | MIT | MIT |
| Written in | TypeScript | Rust |
| Last push | 2026-10-31 | 2026-11-02 |
| Forks | ⑂ 2.3K | ⑂ 2.5K |
| 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 turborepo if
- You want the turborepo feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the MIT license terms
- Your stack matches Rust
- You evaluated both and turborepo fits your workflow better
About lerna
Important note: this project changed stewardship to Nx! Your favorite tool is alive and well: Lerna is a fast, modern build system for managing and publishing multiple JavaScript/TypeScript packages from the same repository. A few links to help you get started: lerna.js.org: Documentation, Guides, Interactive Tutorials Getting Started Features Official Nx and Lerna YouTube Channel Blog Posts About Lerna and Nx Engage with the Core Team and the Community Follow Lerna on Twitter Community Discord, forum channel Want to help? If you want to file a bug or submit a PR, read up on our guidelines for contributing Core…
read the full lerna overview →
About turborepo
Turborepo Turborepo is the build system for coding agents. Getting Started Visit to get started with Turborepo. Contributing See CONTRIBUTING.md for more information. Community The Turborepo community can be found on GitHub Discussions, where you can ask questions, voice ideas, and share your projects. To chat with other community members, you can join Vercel Community's turborepo tag. Our Code of Conduct applies to all Turborepo community channels. Who is using Turborepo? Turborepo is used by the world's leading companies. Check out the Turborepo Showcase to learn more. Updates Follow @turborepo on X for…
read the full turborepo overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is lerna or turborepo more popular?
lerna has 36,041 GitHub stars and turborepo has 31,295. lerna has the larger community by that measure.
Are lerna and turborepo free?
Both are open source. lerna is licensed under MIT and turborepo under MIT. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between lerna and turborepo?
lerna is written in TypeScript and turborepo 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, lerna or turborepo?
Choose lerna if you want the larger community (36,041 stars) or its MIT licence terms. Choose turborepo if its feature set, stack or MIT licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.