head to head · open source
rspack vs xmake
rspack has 12,911 GitHub stars, 853 forks, 224 open issues and last shipped today. xmake has 12,222 stars, 954 forks, 255 open issues and last shipped yesterday. rspack leads on adoption by 6% (12,911 vs 12,222 stars). rspack is written in Rust under MIT; xmake is written in Lua under Apache-2.0. rspack has attracted 7% as many forks as stars, xmake 8%. 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 | xmake | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 13K | ★ 12K |
| License | MIT | Apache-2.0 |
| Written in | Rust | Lua |
| Last push | 2026-09-20 | 2026-09-19 |
| Forks | ⑂ 853 | ⑂ 954 |
| 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 xmake if
- You want the xmake feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the Apache-2.0 license terms
- Your stack matches Lua
- You evaluated both and xmake 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 xmake
Xmake is a cross platform build utility and package manager, written in Lua and licensed under Apache 2.0, that takes a single xmake.lua project file and turns it into builds for desktop, mobile, BSD, Wasm and other targets — it is aimed at C, C++, Objective C and mixed toolchain developers who want Make/Ninja style building, CMake/Meson style project generation, and Vcpkg/Conan style dependency handling from one tool.
read the full xmake overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is rspack or xmake more popular?
rspack has 12,911 GitHub stars and xmake has 12,222. rspack has the larger community by that measure.
Are rspack and xmake free?
Both are open source. rspack is licensed under MIT and xmake under Apache-2.0. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between rspack and xmake?
rspack is written in Rust and xmake in Lua. 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 xmake?
Choose rspack if you want the larger community (12,911 stars) or its MIT licence terms. Choose xmake if its feature set, stack or Apache-2.0 licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.