head to head · open source
parcel vs toast
parcel has 44,005 GitHub stars, 2,317 forks, 606 open issues and last shipped 5 days ago. toast has 1,635 stars, 39 forks, 9 open issues and last shipped 2 days ago. parcel leads on adoption by 2,591% (44,005 vs 1,635 stars). parcel is written in JavaScript under MIT; toast is written in Rust under MIT. parcel has attracted 5% as many forks as stars, toast 2%. toast 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 | toast | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 44K | ★ 1.6K |
| License | MIT | MIT |
| Written in | JavaScript | Rust |
| Last push | 2026-10-22 | 2026-10-25 |
| Forks | ⑂ 2.3K | ⑂ 39 |
| 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 toast if
- You want the toast feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the MIT license terms
- Your stack matches Rust
- You evaluated both and toast 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 toast
Toast 🥂 Toast is a tool for containerizing your workflows such as building and testing a project. You define tasks in a YAML file called a toastfile , and Toast runs them in a container based on a Docker image of your choosing. What constitutes a "task" is up to you: tasks can install system packages, compile an application, run a test suite, or even serve web pages. Tasks can depend on other tasks, so Toast can be understood as a high level containerized build system. Here's the toastfile for the example shown above: Toast caches each task by committing the container to an image. The image is tagged with a…
read the full toast overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is parcel or toast more popular?
parcel has 44,005 GitHub stars and toast has 1,635. parcel has the larger community by that measure.
Are parcel and toast free?
Both are open source. parcel is licensed under MIT and toast under MIT. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between parcel and toast?
parcel is written in JavaScript and toast in Rust. 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 toast?
Choose parcel if you want the larger community (44,005 stars) or its MIT licence terms. Choose toast if its feature set, stack or MIT licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.