head to head · open source
nx vs xmake
nx has 29,349 GitHub stars, 3,002 forks, 490 open issues and last shipped yesterday. xmake has 12,220 stars, 954 forks, 255 open issues and last shipped 2 days ago. nx leads on adoption by 140% (29,349 vs 12,220 stars). nx is written in TypeScript under MIT; xmake is written in Lua under Apache-2.0. nx has attracted 10% as many forks as stars, xmake 8%. nx was the more recently maintained of the two, and both are self-hostable with no licence fee. The two share 2 topic tags (build, 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 | xmake | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 29K | ★ 12K |
| License | MIT | Apache-2.0 |
| Written in | TypeScript | Lua |
| Last push | 2026-09-17 | 2026-09-16 |
| Forks | ⑂ 3.0K | ⑂ 954 |
| 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 xmake if
- You want the xmake feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the Apache-2.0 license terms
- Your stack matches Lua
- You evaluated both and xmake 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 xmake
Xmake is a cross platform build utility and package manager, written in Lua and licensed under Apache 2.0, that takes a single xmake.lua project file and turns it into builds for desktop, mobile, BSD, Wasm and other targets — it is aimed at C, C++, Objective C and mixed toolchain developers who want Make/Ninja style building, CMake/Meson style project generation, and Vcpkg/Conan style dependency handling from one tool.
read the full xmake overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is nx or xmake more popular?
nx has 29,349 GitHub stars and xmake has 12,220. nx has the larger community by that measure.
Are nx and xmake free?
Both are open source. nx is licensed under MIT and xmake under Apache-2.0. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between nx and xmake?
nx is written in TypeScript and xmake in Lua. 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 xmake?
Choose nx if you want the larger community (29,349 stars) or its MIT licence terms. Choose xmake if its feature set, stack or Apache-2.0 licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.