head to head · open source
parcel vs swiftwave
parcel has 44,025 GitHub stars, 2,284 forks, 606 open issues and last shipped 12 days ago. swiftwave has 893 stars, 67 forks, 28 open issues and last shipped 5 days ago. parcel leads on adoption by 4,830% (44,025 vs 893 stars). parcel is written in JavaScript under MIT; swiftwave is written in Go under Apache-2.0. parcel has attracted 5% as many forks as stars, swiftwave 8%. swiftwave 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 8884 open source comparisons
Side by side
| parcel | swiftwave | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 44K | ★ 893 |
| License | MIT | Apache-2.0 |
| Written in | JavaScript | Go |
| Last push | 2026-09-06 | 2026-09-13 |
| Forks | ⑂ 2.3K | ⑂ 67 |
| 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, 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 swiftwave
Swiftwave is a self hosted, lightweight platform as a service written in Go that lets developers deploy and manage applications on their own servers, positioned as an open source alternative to Heroku, Netlify, and Render.
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 44,025 GitHub stars and swiftwave has 893. 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 (44,025 stars) or its MIT licence terms. Choose swiftwave if its feature set, stack or Apache-2.0 licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.