head to head · open source
nx vs proguard
nx has 29,349 GitHub stars, 3,002 forks, 490 open issues and last shipped yesterday. proguard has 3,662 stars, 485 forks, 176 open issues and last shipped 25 days ago. nx leads on adoption by 701% (29,349 vs 3,662 stars). nx is written in TypeScript under MIT; proguard is written in Java under GPL-2.0. nx has attracted 10% as many forks as stars, proguard 13%. 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 | proguard | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 29K | ★ 3.7K |
| License | MIT | GPL-2.0 |
| Written in | TypeScript | Java |
| Last push | 2026-09-17 | 2026-08-24 |
| Forks | ⑂ 3.0K | ⑂ 485 |
| 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 proguard if
- You want the proguard feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the GPL-2.0 license terms
- Your stack matches Java
- You evaluated both and proguard 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 proguard
ProGuard is a free Java bytecode tool that shrinks, optimizes, obfuscates, and preverifies compiled Java applications and libraries. It lives in the Java and Android build ecosystem as a post compiler step, not as a source compiler or runtime dependency. The problem it solves is that Java bytecode often contains classes, fields, methods, attributes, and instructions that a specific application does not need. ProGuard removes unused parts, renames remaining program elements with short meaningless names, and applies optimizations such as method inlining, constant propagation, unused parameter removal, and identifie…
read the full proguard overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is nx or proguard more popular?
nx has 29,349 GitHub stars and proguard has 3,662. nx has the larger community by that measure.
Are nx and proguard free?
Both are open source. nx is licensed under MIT and proguard under GPL-2.0. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between nx and proguard?
nx is written in TypeScript and proguard in Java. 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 proguard?
Choose nx if you want the larger community (29,349 stars) or its MIT licence terms. Choose proguard if its feature set, stack or GPL-2.0 licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.