head to head · open source
parcel vs swiftwave
parcel has 44,008 GitHub stars, 2,425 forks, 606 open issues and last shipped yesterday. swiftwave has 909 stars, 65 forks, 28 open issues and last shipped 5 days ago. parcel leads on adoption by 4,741% (44,008 vs 909 stars). parcel is written in JavaScript under MIT; swiftwave is written in Go under Apache-2.0. parcel has attracted 6% as many forks as stars, swiftwave 7%. parcel was the more recently maintained of the two, and both are self-hostable with no licence fee.
Two open source projects, one decision. Both are free and self-hostable — the differences are community size, license terms, language stack and release pace.
← all 20902 open source comparisons
Side by side
| parcel | swiftwave | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 44K | ★ 909 |
| License | MIT | Apache-2.0 |
| Written in | JavaScript | Go |
| Last push | 2026-11-02 | 2026-10-29 |
| Forks | ⑂ 2.4K | ⑂ 65 |
| 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 swiftwave if
- You want the swiftwave feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the Apache-2.0 license terms
- Your stack matches Go
- You evaluated both and swiftwave fits your workflow better
About parcel
Parcel is a zero configuration build tool for the web. It combines a great out of the box development experience with a scalable architecture that can take your project from just getting started to massive production application. Features 😍 Zero config – Parcel supports many languages and file types out of the box, from web technologies like HTML, CSS, and JavaScript, to assets like images, fonts, videos, and more. It has a built in dev server with hot reloading, beautiful error diagnostics, and much more. No configuration needed! ⚡️ Lightning fast – Parcel's JavaScript compiler is written in Rust for native…
read the full parcel overview →
About swiftwave
SwiftWave is a self hosted, lightweight PaaS solution for easily deploying and managing your applications on any server 🚀. It's an open source alternative to Heroku, Netlify, and Render. You can install swiftwave in bare metal, Raspberry Pi, in any VPS(Hetzner, DigitalOcean, Linode, AWS, GCP etc.). Swiftwave and its dependencies are compatible with AMD64, ARM64 and ARMv7 architectures and compatible with Debian/Ubuntu/Raspbian OS/Fedora/CentOS/AlmaLinux/RockyLinux etc. Checkout swiftwave.org to explore more Why Swiftwave ? If you like to know why Swiftwave created and what is special in it, check this…
read the full swiftwave overview →
More in Developer Tools
Related comparisons
More Build & Deployment projects
Compare either of these against the rest of the Build & Deployment field.
Frequently asked questions
Is parcel or swiftwave more popular?
parcel has 44,008 GitHub stars and swiftwave has 909. parcel has the larger community by that measure.
Are parcel and swiftwave free?
Both are open source. parcel is licensed under MIT and swiftwave under Apache-2.0. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between parcel and swiftwave?
parcel is written in JavaScript and swiftwave in Go. 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 swiftwave?
Choose parcel if you want the larger community (44,008 stars) or its MIT licence terms. Choose swiftwave if its feature set, stack or Apache-2.0 licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.