head to head · open source
rspack vs Bear
rspack has 12,966 GitHub stars, 879 forks, 224 open issues and last shipped yesterday. Bear has 6,534 stars, 372 forks, 0 open issues and last shipped yesterday. rspack leads on adoption by 98% (12,966 vs 6,534 stars). rspack is written in Rust under MIT; Bear is written in Rust under GPL-3.0. rspack has attracted 7% as many forks as stars, Bear 6%. 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 | Bear | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 13K | ★ 6.5K |
| License | MIT | GPL-3.0 |
| Written in | Rust | Rust |
| Last push | 2026-11-04 | 2026-11-04 |
| Forks | ⑂ 879 | ⑂ 372 |
| 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 Bear if
- You want the Bear feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the GPL-3.0 license terms
- Your stack matches Rust
- You evaluated both and Bear 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 Bear
ʕ·ᴥ·ʔ Build EAR =============== Bear gives you working code navigation, autocomplete, and diagnostics on any C/C++ project, whatever the build system. Prefix your build command with bear and it produces the compile commands.json file that Clang tooling (clangd, clang tidy, and friends) needs to understand your code. The [JSON compilation database][JSONCDB] describes how each translation unit is compiled. Bear captures the compiler invocations while your build runs and writes the database for you no changes to your build system required. [JSONCDB]: When to use Bear Bear is the tool of choice when the build system…
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Frequently asked questions
Is rspack or Bear more popular?
rspack has 12,966 GitHub stars and Bear has 6,534. rspack has the larger community by that measure.
Are rspack and Bear free?
Both are open source. rspack is licensed under MIT and Bear under GPL-3.0. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between rspack and Bear?
rspack is written in Rust and Bear 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, rspack or Bear?
Choose rspack if you want the larger community (12,966 stars) or its MIT licence terms. Choose Bear if its feature set, stack or GPL-3.0 licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.