head to head · open source
parcel vs swift-build
parcel has 44,025 GitHub stars, 2,284 forks, 606 open issues and last shipped 12 days ago. swift-build has 2,240 stars, 216 forks, 139 open issues and last shipped yesterday. parcel leads on adoption by 1,865% (44,025 vs 2,240 stars). parcel is written in JavaScript under MIT; swift-build is written in Swift under Apache-2.0. parcel has attracted 5% as many forks as stars, swift-build 10%. swift-build 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 | swift-build | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 44K | ★ 2.2K |
| License | MIT | Apache-2.0 |
| Written in | JavaScript | Swift |
| Last push | 2026-09-06 | 2026-09-17 |
| Forks | ⑂ 2.3K | ⑂ 216 |
| 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 swift-build if
- You want the swift-build feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the Apache-2.0 license terms
- Your stack matches Swift
- You evaluated both and swift-build 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 swift-build
Swift Build ======= Swift Build is a high level build system based on llbuild with great support for building Swift. It is used by SwiftPM, Xcode, and Swift Playground. Usage With SwiftPM Swift Build is the default SwiftPM build system in nightly snapshots of Swift's main branches. In Swift 6.2 and 6.3, it can be enabled by passing build system swiftbuild . When building SwiftPM from source it will be built as a package dependency. When checking out the full set of Swift repositories, SWIFTCI USE LOCAL DEPS=1 swift build package path /path/to/swiftpm can be used to test local changes to Swift Build and SwiftPM to…
read the full swift-build overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is parcel or swift-build more popular?
parcel has 44,025 GitHub stars and swift-build has 2,240. parcel has the larger community by that measure.
Are parcel and swift-build free?
Both are open source. parcel is licensed under MIT and swift-build under Apache-2.0. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between parcel and swift-build?
parcel is written in JavaScript and swift-build in Swift. 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 swift-build?
Choose parcel if you want the larger community (44,025 stars) or its MIT licence terms. Choose swift-build if its feature set, stack or Apache-2.0 licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.