head to head · open source
webpack vs cake
webpack has 65,945 GitHub stars, 9,545 forks, 123 open issues and last shipped yesterday. cake has 4,191 stars, 778 forks, 247 open issues and last shipped 2 days ago. webpack leads on adoption by 1,473% (65,945 vs 4,191 stars). webpack is written in JavaScript under MIT; cake is written in C# under MIT. webpack has attracted 14% as many forks as stars, cake 19%. webpack 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
| webpack | cake | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 66K | ★ 4.2K |
| License | MIT | MIT |
| Written in | JavaScript | C# |
| Last push | 2026-09-17 | 2026-09-16 |
| Forks | ⑂ 9.5K | ⑂ 778 |
| Self-hosting | Yes | Yes |
| Data ownership | Your server | Your server |
pick webpack if
- You weight community size — 66K stars and counting
- You want the MIT license terms
- Your stack matches JavaScript
- You value the larger contributor base for long-term maintenance
pick cake if
- You want the cake feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the MIT license terms
- Your stack matches C#
- You evaluated both and cake fits your workflow better
About webpack
webpack is an open source module bundler for JavaScript and related assets, distributed under the MIT license and published to npm. It lives in the JavaScript ecosystem, where the README describes its main purpose as bundling JavaScript files for use in a browser, while also being capable of transforming, bundling, or packaging just about any resource or asset. Loaders let modules arrive in many forms — CommonJS, AMD, ES6 modules, CSS, images, JSON, CoffeeScript, LESS, or custom formats — and the plugin system extends what the build can do.
read the full webpack overview →
About cake
Cake, called C Make, is cross platform build automation system. It lives in .NET ecosystem. It lets developers write build logic in C . That logic can compile code, copy files and folders, run unit tests, compress files, build NuGet packages. Project is MIT licensed C software. It provides Cake .NET Tool, Cake Frosting, Cake SDK packages.
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Frequently asked questions
Is webpack or cake more popular?
webpack has 65,945 GitHub stars and cake has 4,191. webpack has the larger community by that measure.
Are webpack and cake free?
Both are open source. webpack is licensed under MIT and cake under MIT. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between webpack and cake?
webpack is written in JavaScript and cake in C#. The practical differences are community size, licence terms, language stack and release cadence — all compared in the table above.
Which should I choose, webpack or cake?
Choose webpack if you want the larger community (65,945 stars) or its MIT licence terms. Choose cake if its feature set, stack or MIT licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.