head to head · open source
webpack vs proguard
webpack has 65,978 GitHub stars, 9,619 forks, 123 open issues and last shipped yesterday. proguard has 3,690 stars, 486 forks, 176 open issues and last shipped 4 days ago. webpack leads on adoption by 1,688% (65,978 vs 3,690 stars). webpack is written in JavaScript under MIT; proguard is written in Java under GPL-2.0. webpack has attracted 15% as many forks as stars, proguard 13%. 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 | proguard | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 66K | ★ 3.7K |
| License | MIT | GPL-2.0 |
| Written in | JavaScript | Java |
| Last push | 2026-11-02 | 2026-10-30 |
| Forks | ⑂ 9.6K | ⑂ 486 |
| 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 proguard if
- You want the proguard feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the GPL-2.0 license terms
- Your stack matches Java
- You evaluated both and proguard fits your workflow better
About webpack
[![npm][npm]][npm url] [![node][node]][node url] [![builds1][builds1]][builds1 url] [![dependency review][dependency review]][dependency review url] [![coverage][cover]][cover url] [![PR's welcome][prs]][prs url] webpack Webpack is a module bundler. Its main purpose is to bundle JavaScript files for usage in a browser, yet it is also capable of transforming, bundling, or packaging just about any resource or asset. Table of Contents Install Introduction Concepts Contributing Support Current project members TSC (Technical Steering Committee) Core Collaborators Sponsoring Premium Partners Gold Sponsors Silver…
read the full webpack overview →
About proguard
Quick Start • Features • Contributing • License ProGuard is a free shrinker, optimizer, obfuscator, and preverifier for Java bytecode: It detects and removes unused classes, fields, methods, and attributes. It optimizes bytecode and removes unused instructions. It renames the remaining classes, fields, and methods using short meaningless names. The resulting applications and libraries are smaller and faster. ❓ Getting Help Please use the issue tracker to report actual bugs 🐛, crashes , etc. 🚀 Quick Start Command line First, download the latest release from GitHub releases. To run ProGuard, on Linux/MacOS, just…
read the full proguard overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is webpack or proguard more popular?
webpack has 65,978 GitHub stars and proguard has 3,690. webpack has the larger community by that measure.
Are webpack and proguard free?
Both are open source. webpack is licensed under MIT and proguard under GPL-2.0. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between webpack and proguard?
webpack is written in JavaScript and proguard in Java. 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 proguard?
Choose webpack if you want the larger community (65,978 stars) or its MIT licence terms. Choose proguard if its feature set, stack or GPL-2.0 licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.