head to head · open source
parcel vs haskell.nix
parcel has 44,025 GitHub stars, 2,284 forks, 606 open issues and last shipped 12 days ago. haskell.nix has 631 stars, 265 forks, 105 open issues and last shipped yesterday. parcel leads on adoption by 6,877% (44,025 vs 631 stars). parcel is written in JavaScript under MIT; haskell.nix is written in Nix under Apache-2.0. parcel has attracted 5% as many forks as stars, haskell.nix 42%. haskell.nix 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
| parcel | haskell.nix | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 44K | ★ 631 |
| License | MIT | Apache-2.0 |
| Written in | JavaScript | Nix |
| Last push | 2026-09-06 | 2026-09-17 |
| Forks | ⑂ 2.3K | ⑂ 265 |
| Self-hosting | Yes | Yes |
| Data ownership | Your server | Your server |
pick parcel if
- You weight community size — 44K stars and counting
- You want the MIT license terms
- Your stack matches JavaScript
- You value the larger contributor base for long-term maintenance
pick haskell.nix if
- You want the haskell.nix feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the Apache-2.0 license terms
- Your stack matches Nix
- You evaluated both and haskell.nix fits your workflow better
About parcel
Parcel is a zero configuration build tool for the web, distributed as the parcel package on npm and licensed under MIT. It lives in the JavaScript ecosystem and is written primarily in JavaScript, with its JavaScript compiler implemented in Rust for native performance. The project has been developed for roughly nine years, carries more than 44,000 stars and over 2,200 forks on GitHub, and its documentation is hosted at parceljs.org.
read the full parcel overview →
About haskell.nix
haskell.nix is infrastructure for building Haskell packages with Nix haskell.nix can automatically translate your Cabal or Stack project and its dependencies into Nix code. Documentation Introduction Getting Started Troubleshooting Explore the documentation from there to find further topics. Help! Something isn't working The 1 problem that people have when using haskell.nix is that they find themselves building GHC. This should not happen, but you must follow the haskell.nix setup instructions properly to avoid it. If you find this happening to you, please check that you have followed the getting started instruct…
read the full haskell.nix overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is parcel or haskell.nix more popular?
parcel has 44,025 GitHub stars and haskell.nix has 631. parcel has the larger community by that measure.
Are parcel and haskell.nix free?
Both are open source. parcel is licensed under MIT and haskell.nix under Apache-2.0. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between parcel and haskell.nix?
parcel is written in JavaScript and haskell.nix in Nix. The practical differences are community size, licence terms, language stack and release cadence — all compared in the table above.
Which should I choose, parcel or haskell.nix?
Choose parcel if you want the larger community (44,025 stars) or its MIT licence terms. Choose haskell.nix if its feature set, stack or Apache-2.0 licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.