head to head · open source
parcel vs xc
parcel has 44,025 GitHub stars, 2,284 forks, 606 open issues and last shipped 12 days ago. xc has 1,401 stars, 35 forks, 17 open issues and last shipped 2 months ago. parcel leads on adoption by 3,042% (44,025 vs 1,401 stars). parcel is written in JavaScript under MIT; xc is written in Go under MIT. parcel has attracted 5% as many forks as stars, xc 2%. parcel 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.
← all 8884 open source comparisons
Side by side
| parcel | xc | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 44K | ★ 1.4K |
| License | MIT | MIT |
| Written in | JavaScript | Go |
| Last push | 2026-09-06 | 2026-07-17 |
| Forks | ⑂ 2.3K | ⑂ 35 |
| 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 xc if
- You want the xc feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the MIT license terms
- Your stack matches Go
- You evaluated both and xc 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 xc
xc Simple, Convenient, Docs based task runner. Docs Getting Started GitHub xc is a task runner similar to Make or npm run , that aims to be more discoverable and approachable. The problem xc is intended to solve is scripts maintained separately from their documentation. Often a Makefile or a package.json will contain some useful scripts for developing on a project, then the README.md will surface and describe these scripts. In such a case, since the documentation is separate, it may not be updated when scripts are changed or added. xc aims to solve this by defining the scripts inline with the documentation. xc is…
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 xc more popular?
parcel has 44,025 GitHub stars and xc has 1,401. parcel has the larger community by that measure.
Are parcel and xc free?
Both are open source. parcel is licensed under MIT and xc under MIT. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between parcel and xc?
parcel is written in JavaScript and xc 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 xc?
Choose parcel if you want the larger community (44,025 stars) or its MIT licence terms. Choose xc if its feature set, stack or MIT licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.