head to head · open source
nx vs proguard
nx has 29,443 GitHub stars, 2,973 forks, 490 open issues and last shipped yesterday. proguard has 3,690 stars, 486 forks, 176 open issues and last shipped 4 days ago. nx leads on adoption by 698% (29,443 vs 3,690 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 | 2026-11-02 | 2026-10-30 |
| Forks | ⑂ 3.0K | ⑂ 486 |
| 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
Smart Monorepos · Fast Builds Docs • Changelog • Blog • Courses • YouTube Nx is a monorepo solution for TypeScript and polyglot codebases. Built with Rust for performance, extensible via TypeScript. Caches what didn't change, runs only what's affected, and comes with an integrated CI solution. Start simple, scale as you grow. Quick Start Visit the Nx quickstart docs to get started. Why Nx? Incremental by design Run npx nx init in any npm/pnpm/yarn workspace. Nx picks up your existing package.json scripts, caches their outputs, and runs only what's affected. No changes to your setup required…
About proguard
Quick Start • Features • Contributing • License ProGuard is a free shrinker, optimizer, obfuscator, and preverifier for Java bytecode: It detects and removes unused classes, fields, methods, and attributes. It optimizes bytecode and removes unused instructions. It renames the remaining classes, fields, and methods using short meaningless names. The resulting applications and libraries are smaller and faster. ❓ Getting Help Please use the issue tracker to report actual bugs 🐛, crashes , etc. 🚀 Quick Start Command line First, download the latest release from GitHub releases. To run ProGuard, on Linux/MacOS, just…
read the full proguard overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is nx or proguard more popular?
nx has 29,443 GitHub stars and proguard has 3,690. 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 (29,443 stars) or its MIT licence terms. Choose proguard if its feature set, stack or GPL-2.0 licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.