head to head · open source
vite vs trunk
vite has 82,861 GitHub stars, 8,745 forks, 767 open issues and last shipped yesterday. trunk has 4,391 stars, 322 forks, 136 open issues and last shipped 9 days ago. vite leads on adoption by 1,787% (82,861 vs 4,391 stars). vite is written in TypeScript under MIT; trunk is written in Rust under Apache-2.0. vite has attracted 11% as many forks as stars, trunk 7%. vite 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
| vite | trunk | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 83K | ★ 4.4K |
| License | MIT | Apache-2.0 |
| Written in | TypeScript | Rust |
| Last push | 2026-09-17 | 2026-09-09 |
| Forks | ⑂ 8.7K | ⑂ 322 |
| Self-hosting | Yes | Yes |
| Data ownership | Your server | Your server |
pick vite if
- You weight community size — 83K stars and counting
- You want the MIT license terms
- Your stack matches TypeScript
- You value the larger contributor base for long-term maintenance
pick trunk if
- You want the trunk feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the Apache-2.0 license terms
- Your stack matches Rust
- You evaluated both and trunk fits your workflow better
About vite
Vite is a build tool for modern web projects, distributed as a set of npm packages and licensed under MIT. It is written in TypeScript and lives in the JavaScript and frontend tooling ecosystem, where it sits alongside the bundlers and dev servers that compile application source into browser ready assets. The project describes itself as next generation frontend tooling and has been maintained for roughly six years, with the most recent push recorded in September 2026.
About trunk
Trunk is a build and bundling tool for Rust applications that target WebAssembly for the web. It lives in the Rust and WebAssembly ecosystem, and the README describes it as a WASM web application bundler for Rust. The project uses a source HTML file as the entry point for building and bundling WASM, JavaScript snippets, and assets such as images, CSS, SCSS, and HTML.
read the full trunk overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is vite or trunk more popular?
vite has 82,861 GitHub stars and trunk has 4,391. vite has the larger community by that measure.
Are vite and trunk free?
Both are open source. vite is licensed under MIT and trunk under Apache-2.0. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between vite and trunk?
vite is written in TypeScript and trunk 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, vite or trunk?
Choose vite if you want the larger community (82,861 stars) or its MIT licence terms. Choose trunk if its feature set, stack or Apache-2.0 licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.