head to head · open source
nx vs Bear
nx has 29,359 GitHub stars, 3,003 forks, 490 open issues and last shipped yesterday. Bear has 6,493 stars, 369 forks, 0 open issues and last shipped 2 days ago. nx leads on adoption by 352% (29,359 vs 6,493 stars). nx is written in TypeScript under MIT; Bear is written in Rust under GPL-3.0. nx has attracted 10% as many forks as stars, Bear 6%. nx 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
| nx | Bear | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 29K | ★ 6.5K |
| License | MIT | GPL-3.0 |
| Written in | TypeScript | Rust |
| Last push | 2026-09-19 | 2026-09-18 |
| Forks | ⑂ 3.0K | ⑂ 369 |
| Self-hosting | Yes | Yes |
| Data ownership | Your server | Your server |
pick nx if
- You weight community size — 29K stars and counting
- You want the MIT license terms
- Your stack matches TypeScript
- 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 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.
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 nx or Bear more popular?
nx has 29,359 GitHub stars and Bear has 6,493. nx has the larger community by that measure.
Are nx and Bear free?
Both are open source. nx is licensed under MIT and Bear under GPL-3.0. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between nx and Bear?
nx is written in TypeScript 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, nx or Bear?
Choose nx if you want the larger community (29,359 stars) or its MIT licence terms. Choose Bear if its feature set, stack or GPL-3.0 licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.