head to head · open source
webpack vs proguard
webpack has 65,945 GitHub stars, 9,545 forks, 123 open issues and last shipped yesterday. proguard has 3,662 stars, 485 forks, 176 open issues and last shipped 25 days ago. webpack leads on adoption by 1,701% (65,945 vs 3,662 stars). webpack is written in JavaScript under MIT; proguard is written in Java under GPL-2.0. webpack has attracted 14% 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 | 2026-09-17 | 2026-08-24 |
| Forks | ⑂ 9.5K | ⑂ 485 |
| 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
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 proguard
ProGuard is a free Java bytecode tool that shrinks, optimizes, obfuscates, and preverifies compiled Java applications and libraries. It lives in the Java and Android build ecosystem as a post compiler step, not as a source compiler or runtime dependency. The problem it solves is that Java bytecode often contains classes, fields, methods, attributes, and instructions that a specific application does not need. ProGuard removes unused parts, renames remaining program elements with short meaningless names, and applies optimizations such as method inlining, constant propagation, unused parameter removal, and identifie…
read the full proguard overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is webpack or proguard more popular?
webpack has 65,945 GitHub stars and proguard has 3,662. 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 (65,945 stars) or its MIT licence terms. Choose proguard if its feature set, stack or GPL-2.0 licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.