head to head · open source
webpack vs mill
webpack has 65,945 GitHub stars, 9,545 forks, 123 open issues and last shipped yesterday. mill has 2,792 stars, 447 forks, 272 open issues and last shipped yesterday. webpack leads on adoption by 2,262% (65,945 vs 2,792 stars). webpack is written in JavaScript under MIT; mill is written in Scala under MIT. webpack has attracted 14% as many forks as stars, mill 16%. 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 | mill | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 66K | ★ 2.8K |
| License | MIT | MIT |
| Written in | JavaScript | Scala |
| Last push | 2026-09-17 | 2026-09-17 |
| Forks | ⑂ 9.5K | ⑂ 447 |
| 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 mill if
- You want the mill feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the MIT license terms
- Your stack matches Scala
- You evaluated both and mill 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 mill
Mill build tool. Java Scala Kotlin projects. Lives in JVM ecosystem. Category Developer Tools / Build & Deployment. License MIT. Language Scala. Homepage mill build.org. Stable version 1.1.9. Maven Central artifact com.lihaoyi/mill dist shown. Badge shows stable version and unstable dev version. Repo age 9 years. Last push 2026 09 14T12:22:46Z. Stars 2791. Forks 447. Open issues 272. Contributors not listed. GitHub description repeats tagline. README links current documentation site. README includes quick example.
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Frequently asked questions
Is webpack or mill more popular?
webpack has 65,945 GitHub stars and mill has 2,792. webpack has the larger community by that measure.
Are webpack and mill free?
Both are open source. webpack is licensed under MIT and mill under MIT. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between webpack and mill?
webpack is written in JavaScript and mill in Scala. 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 mill?
Choose webpack if you want the larger community (65,945 stars) or its MIT licence terms. Choose mill if its feature set, stack or MIT licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.