head to head · open source
gradle vs style-dictionary
gradle has 18,918 GitHub stars, 5,264 forks, 3,494 open issues and last shipped yesterday. style-dictionary has 4,875 stars, 648 forks, 242 open issues and last shipped 2 days ago. gradle leads on adoption by 288% (18,918 vs 4,875 stars). gradle is written in Groovy under Apache-2.0; style-dictionary is written in JavaScript under Apache-2.0. gradle has attracted 28% as many forks as stars, style-dictionary 13%. gradle 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
| gradle | style-dictionary | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 19K | ★ 4.9K |
| License | Apache-2.0 | Apache-2.0 |
| Written in | Groovy | JavaScript |
| Last push | 2026-11-04 | 2026-11-03 |
| Forks | ⑂ 5.3K | ⑂ 648 |
| Self-hosting | Yes | Yes |
| Data ownership | Your server | Your server |
pick gradle if
- You weight community size — 19K stars and counting
- You want the Apache-2.0 license terms
- Your stack matches Groovy
- You value the larger contributor base for long-term maintenance
pick style-dictionary if
- You want the style-dictionary feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the Apache-2.0 license terms
- Your stack matches JavaScript
- You evaluated both and style-dictionary fits your workflow better
About gradle
🐘 Gradle Build Tool Gradle is a highly scalable build automation tool designed to handle everything from large, multi project enterprise builds to quick development tasks across various languages. Gradle’s modular, performance oriented architecture seamlessly integrates with development environments, making it a go to solution for building, testing, and deploying applications on Java , Kotlin , Scala , Android , Groovy , C++ , and Swift . For a comprehensive overview, please visit the official Gradle project homepage. 🚀 Getting Started Starting with Gradle is easy with these essential resources. Follow these…
read the full gradle overview →
About style-dictionary
What's new in Style Dictionary 4.0! Style Dictionary See documentation Style once, use everywhere. A Style Dictionary uses design tokens to define styles once and use those styles on any platform or language. It provides a single place to create and edit your styles, and exports these tokens to all the places you need iOS, Android, CSS, JS, HTML, sketch files, style documentation, etc. It is available as a CLI through npm, but can also be used like any normal node module if you want to extend its functionality. When you are managing user experiences, it can be quite challenging to keep styles consistent and…
read the full style-dictionary overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is gradle or style-dictionary more popular?
gradle has 18,918 GitHub stars and style-dictionary has 4,875. gradle has the larger community by that measure.
Are gradle and style-dictionary free?
Both are open source. gradle is licensed under Apache-2.0 and style-dictionary under Apache-2.0. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between gradle and style-dictionary?
gradle is written in Groovy and style-dictionary in JavaScript. The practical differences are community size, licence terms, language stack and release cadence — all compared in the table above.
Which should I choose, gradle or style-dictionary?
Choose gradle if you want the larger community (18,918 stars) or its Apache-2.0 licence terms. Choose style-dictionary if its feature set, stack or Apache-2.0 licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.