head to head · open source
parcel vs trunk
parcel has 44,025 GitHub stars, 2,284 forks, 606 open issues and last shipped 12 days ago. trunk has 4,391 stars, 322 forks, 136 open issues and last shipped 9 days ago. parcel leads on adoption by 903% (44,025 vs 4,391 stars). parcel is written in JavaScript under MIT; trunk is written in Rust under Apache-2.0. parcel has attracted 5% as many forks as stars, trunk 7%. trunk was the more recently maintained of the two, and both are self-hostable with no licence fee. The two share 4 topic tags (assets, build-tool, compiler, html), 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 | trunk | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 44K | ★ 4.4K |
| License | MIT | Apache-2.0 |
| Written in | JavaScript | Rust |
| Last push | 2026-09-06 | 2026-09-09 |
| Forks | ⑂ 2.3K | ⑂ 322 |
| 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 trunk if
- You want the trunk feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the Apache-2.0 license terms
- Your stack matches Rust
- You evaluated both and trunk 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 trunk
Trunk is a build and bundling tool for Rust applications that target WebAssembly for the web. It lives in the Rust and WebAssembly ecosystem, and the README describes it as a WASM web application bundler for Rust. The project uses a source HTML file as the entry point for building and bundling WASM, JavaScript snippets, and assets such as images, CSS, SCSS, and HTML.
read the full trunk overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is parcel or trunk more popular?
parcel has 44,025 GitHub stars and trunk has 4,391. parcel has the larger community by that measure.
Are parcel and trunk free?
Both are open source. parcel is licensed under MIT and trunk under Apache-2.0. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between parcel and trunk?
parcel is written in JavaScript and trunk 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 trunk?
Choose parcel if you want the larger community (44,025 stars) or its MIT licence terms. Choose trunk if its feature set, stack or Apache-2.0 licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.