head to head · open source
rspack vs penguin-harness
rspack has 12,911 GitHub stars, 853 forks, 224 open issues and last shipped yesterday. penguin-harness has 2,305 stars, 245 forks, 77 open issues and last shipped yesterday. rspack leads on adoption by 460% (12,911 vs 2,305 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%. rspack 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 | ★ 2.3K |
| License | MIT | Apache-2.0 |
| Written in | Rust | TypeScript |
| Last push | 2026-09-20 | 2026-09-20 |
| Forks | ⑂ 853 | ⑂ 245 |
| 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 is a fast bundler for the web written in Rust, distributed under the MIT license. It modernizes the webpack API so that webpack configurations can be replaced seamlessly, while the Rust core delivers fast build speeds. The project lives in the JavaScript and TypeScript build tooling ecosystem, and it is part of Rstack, a unified JavaScript toolchain that also includes Rsbuild, Rslib, Rspress, Rsdoctor, Rstest, and Rslint. The repository carries the topics build tool, bundler, compiler, esm, javascript, jsx, loaders, module bundler, rspack, rstack, rust, and typescript.
read the full rspack overview →
About penguin-harness
PenguinHarness is an open source, local first, multi agent auto development platform that runs on a developer's own computer or server and automates the full lifecycle of AI agent applications — creation, evaluation, optimization, and deployment — under the Apache 2.0 licence.
read the full penguin-harness overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is rspack or penguin-harness more popular?
rspack has 12,911 GitHub stars and penguin-harness has 2,305. 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 (12,911 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.