head to head · open source
rspack vs penguin-harness
rspack has 12,966 GitHub stars, 879 forks, 224 open issues and last shipped yesterday. penguin-harness has 3,130 stars, 335 forks, 77 open issues and last shipped yesterday. rspack leads on adoption by 314% (12,966 vs 3,130 stars). rspack is written in Rust under MIT; penguin-harness is written in TypeScript under Apache-2.0. rspack has attracted 7% as many forks as stars, penguin-harness 11%. penguin-harness 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
| rspack | penguin-harness | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 13K | ★ 3.1K |
| License | MIT | Apache-2.0 |
| Written in | Rust | TypeScript |
| Last push | 2026-11-04 | 2026-11-04 |
| Forks | ⑂ 879 | ⑂ 335 |
| Self-hosting | Yes | Yes |
| Data ownership | Your server | Your server |
pick rspack if
- You weight community size — 13K stars and counting
- You want the MIT license terms
- Your stack matches Rust
- You value the larger contributor base for long-term maintenance
pick penguin-harness if
- You want the penguin-harness feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the Apache-2.0 license terms
- Your stack matches TypeScript
- You evaluated both and penguin-harness fits your workflow better
About rspack
Rspack English 简体中文 Rspack is a fast Rust based bundler for the web. It modernizes the webpack API to enable seamless replacement of webpack while delivering lightning fast build speeds. ✨ Features 🚀 Fast Startup : Based on Rust, the build speed is extremely fast, bringing you the ultimate development experience. ⚡ Lightning HMR : With a built in incremental compilation mechanism, HMR is extremely fast and fully capable of developing large scale projects. 📦 Webpack Compatible : Compatible with plugins and loaders in the webpack ecosystem, seamlessly integrating excellent libraries built by the community. 🎨…
read the full rspack overview →
About penguin-harness
PenguinHarness Open source, local first multi agent app development platform Fully automate building · optimizing · deploying AI applications 1000+ Models · Multi Platform · Apache 2.0 · Agent Self Evolution = 24" / English 简体中文 Why PenguinHarness With LangChain, you build agents by hand — at 1× speed. With PenguinHarness, agents build agents — at 100×. PenguinHarness runs on your computer or server and automates the agent app lifecycle from creation and evaluation to optimization and deployment. Three reasons define the platform: 1. 🏆 Outstanding results at tens of times less cost A deliberately minimal…
read the full penguin-harness overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is rspack or penguin-harness more popular?
rspack has 12,966 GitHub stars and penguin-harness has 3,130. rspack has the larger community by that measure.
Are rspack and penguin-harness free?
Both are open source. rspack is licensed under MIT and penguin-harness under Apache-2.0. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between rspack and penguin-harness?
rspack is written in Rust and penguin-harness in TypeScript. The practical differences are community size, licence terms, language stack and release cadence — all compared in the table above.
Which should I choose, rspack or penguin-harness?
Choose rspack if you want the larger community (12,966 stars) or its MIT licence terms. Choose penguin-harness if its feature set, stack or Apache-2.0 licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.