head to head · open source
rspack vs devbox
rspack has 12,911 GitHub stars, 853 forks, 224 open issues and last shipped today. devbox has 12,367 stars, 357 forks, 466 open issues and last shipped 3 days ago. rspack leads on adoption by 4% (12,911 vs 12,367 stars). rspack is written in Rust under MIT; devbox is written in Go under Apache-2.0. rspack has attracted 7% as many forks as stars, devbox 3%. 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 | devbox | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 13K | ★ 12K |
| License | MIT | Apache-2.0 |
| Written in | Rust | Go |
| Last push | 2026-09-20 | 2026-09-17 |
| Forks | ⑂ 853 | ⑂ 357 |
| 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 devbox if
- You want the devbox feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the Apache-2.0 license terms
- Your stack matches Go
- You evaluated both and devbox 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 devbox
Devbox is an open source, Apache 2.0 licensed command line tool written in Go that creates isolated, reproducible development shells from a single declaration file, and it is aimed at individual developers and teams who need identical toolchain versions on every machine and in every environment.
read the full devbox overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is rspack or devbox more popular?
rspack has 12,911 GitHub stars and devbox has 12,367. rspack has the larger community by that measure.
Are rspack and devbox free?
Both are open source. rspack is licensed under MIT and devbox under Apache-2.0. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between rspack and devbox?
rspack is written in Rust and devbox 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, rspack or devbox?
Choose rspack if you want the larger community (12,911 stars) or its MIT licence terms. Choose devbox if its feature set, stack or Apache-2.0 licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.