head to head · open source
webpack vs sbt
webpack has 65,978 GitHub stars, 9,619 forks, 123 open issues and last shipped yesterday. sbt has 4,953 stars, 1,053 forks, 498 open issues and last shipped 3 days ago. webpack leads on adoption by 1,232% (65,978 vs 4,953 stars). webpack is written in JavaScript under MIT; sbt is written in Scala under Apache-2.0. webpack has attracted 15% as many forks as stars, sbt 21%. 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 | sbt | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 66K | ★ 5.0K |
| License | MIT | Apache-2.0 |
| Written in | JavaScript | Scala |
| Last push | 2026-11-02 | 2026-10-31 |
| Forks | ⑂ 9.6K | ⑂ 1.1K |
| 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 sbt if
- You want the sbt feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the Apache-2.0 license terms
- Your stack matches Scala
- You evaluated both and sbt 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 sbt
[sbt/sbt zero seven]: [CONTRIBUTING]: CONTRIBUTING.md [contributing docs]: contributing docs/README.md [Setup]: [FAQ]: [sbt dev]: [searching]: [asking]: [LICENSE]: LICENSE [sbt/io]: [sbt/zinc]: [sbt/sbt]: sbt === sbt is a build tool for Scala, Java, and more. For general documentation, see sbt 2.x This is the 2.x series of sbt. The source code of sbt is split across several GitHub repositories, including this one. [sbt/io][sbt/io] hosts sbt.io module. [sbt/zinc][sbt/zinc] hosts Zinc, an incremental compiler for Scala. [sbt/sbt][sbt/sbt], this repository hosts modules that implement the build tool. Other links…
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Frequently asked questions
Is webpack or sbt more popular?
webpack has 65,978 GitHub stars and sbt has 4,953. webpack has the larger community by that measure.
Are webpack and sbt free?
Both are open source. webpack is licensed under MIT and sbt under Apache-2.0. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between webpack and sbt?
webpack is written in JavaScript and sbt 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 sbt?
Choose webpack if you want the larger community (65,978 stars) or its MIT licence terms. Choose sbt if its feature set, stack or Apache-2.0 licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.