compare
esbuild vs webpack
The same facts for both, read from GitHub every night, and the relation a person reviewed.
| Fact | esbuild | webpack |
|---|---|---|
| Language | Go | JavaScript |
| Licence | MIT | MIT |
| Stars | 40k | 66k |
| Latest | v0.28.2 | v5.111.1 |
| Last push | 2026-08-09 | 2026-10-06 |
| Release cadence | about 29 days between releases | about 4 days between releases |
| Active contributors | 4 commit authors on the default branch in the last 90 days | 11+ commit authors on the default branch in the last 90 days |
| Flags | none | none |
How they relate
esbuild replaces webpack. Alternatives to webpack →
PartialBundling and minification with a smaller plugin API.
Published benchmarks, each linked to its source. The numbers depend on the hardware and the workload they were measured on.
Production bundle of 10 copies of three.js
Default settings with minification and source maps: esbuild 0.39s, webpack 5 41.21s (Parcel 2 14.91s, Rollup 4 + Terser 34.10s).
Production build of the popular-libs case
No cache: esbuild 0.28.2 1218ms, webpack 5.111.1 7321ms (webpack using SWC). Run by the Rspack team on GitHub Actions.
esbuild
- v0.28.22026-08-08Fix tree shaking bug due to TypeScript import alias (#4507)
- v0.28.12026-06-11Disallow \ in local development server HTTP requests (GHSA-g7r4-m6w7-qqqr)
- v0.28.02026-04-02Add support for with { type: 'text' } imports (#4435)
- v0.27.72026-04-02Fix lowering of define semantics for TypeScript parameter properties (#4421)
- v0.27.52026-04-02Fix for an async generator edge case (#4401, #4417)
webpack
- v5.111.12026-09-18Throw on a write to an imported binding without losing concatenation. (by @alexander-akait in #22141)
- v5.111.02026-09-14Enable output.module by default with futureDefaults on ESM-capable targets. (by @alexander-akait in #22088)
- v5.110.32026-09-01Fix import() options, circular reexport severity and namespace writes. (by @alexander-akait in #21867)
- v5.110.22026-08-30Fix analyzable ESM baking around cycles, mixed-served wasm and style url maps. (by @alexander-akait in #21851)
- v5.110.12026-08-27Fix a capture-group-less snapshot.managedPaths RegExp; speed up cache writes. (by @alexander-akait in #21843)
esbuild
unsigned The latest release, v0.28.2, carries no signature GitHub could verify.
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webpack
✓ signed The latest release, v5.111.1, carries a signature GitHub verified.
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