tsup vs unbuild: Should You Switch? 931ms vs 2034ms

On a 150-file TypeScript library built to ESM plus CJS, tsup 8.5.1 took a median 931 ms and unbuild 3.6.1 took 2034 ms (~2.2x slower). With .d.ts generation on, the gap shrank to 3213 ms vs 3740 ms, and unbuild's ESM output was about 5% smaller (114.6 KB vs 120.5 KB).

Short answer: stay on tsup if raw build speed is your main concern and you are fine with a project whose README now says it is not actively maintained. Move to unbuild if you want an actively developed Rollup-based builder, smaller output, and --stub linking during development. No affiliate links in this post.

What I tested

• Machine: 8 vCPU Intel Xeon / 15 GB RAM Linux cloud box, Node 20.19.2, tested 5 Oct 2026 (about 23:16 to 23:17 IST). Shared box; variants interleaved each round.
• Fixture: 150 .ts modules plus one index.ts barrel. Each module has an interface, a union type, a string enum, a generic class, and a function that imports from the previous module (600 exports in total).
• Tools: tsup 8.5.1 (esbuild 0.27.7) and unbuild 3.6.1 (rollup 4.64.0, rollup-plugin-dts 6.5.1), TypeScript 5.9.3. npm installed TS 5.9 rather than the 7.0 latest tag for these two builders. Both set to target: es2022, formats ESM and CJS, one entry.
• Timing: one warmup each, then five interleaved rounds of four variants: tsup and unbuild, each with and without declaration output. Wall clock via process.hrtime around the full npx command.
• Findings: no-dts medians 930.9 ms (tsup) vs 2033.9 ms (unbuild); with dts 3213.0 ms vs 3740.2 ms. Both outputs passed a smoke test: util149(1) returned 11176 from ESM and CJS, and both exposed 600 exports.
• One surprise: unbuild exited with code 1 on the first run because of a "Potential missing package.json files" warning about my bare package.json. Setting failOnWarn: false (or adding a proper exports map) fixed it.
• Not tested: tsdown, unbuild's mkdist bundleless mode, multi-entry libraries, watch mode, Vue or JSX sources, Windows/macOS.

Is tsup faster than unbuild?

Variant	Median wall	Runs (ms)
tsup 8.5.1, ESM+CJS	931 ms	1027 / 890 / 931 / 1004 / 870
unbuild 3.6.1, ESM+CJS	2034 ms	2034 / 2099 / 1939 / 2054 / 1964
tsup 8.5.1, ESM+CJS + .d.ts	3213 ms	3448 / 3130 / 3162 / 3213 / 3234
unbuild 3.6.1, ESM+CJS + .d.ts	3740 ms	3817 / 3740 / 3570 / 3802 / 3707

Yes. tsup transpiles and bundles with esbuild, while unbuild runs Rollup with an esbuild transform, and on this fixture that Rollup path cost about 1.1 s more. Once declaration files are on, both spend most of their time in the TypeScript compiler, so the difference drops to about 0.5 s (~1.16x). For most libraries that publish types, that is the number that matters.

The bundler underneath is the real split. The Rolldown vs Rollup post and the SWC vs esbuild vs Babel post have engine-level numbers from the same box.

Which one produces smaller output?

File	tsup 8.5.1	unbuild 3.6.1
ESM bundle	index.js 120,537 B	index.mjs 114,578 B
CJS bundle	index.cjs 136,252 B	index.cjs 124,942 B
Type declarations	index.d.ts + index.d.cts, 106,671 B each	index.d.ts + .d.mts + .d.cts, 105,187 B each
Total on disk	470,131 B	555,081 B

unbuild's JS was smaller: 4.9% for ESM and 8.3% for CJS. Most of the gap is tsup writing a // src/modN.ts comment before each module and emitting each class as var Svc0 = class with an extra prefix; field line, where Rollup kept plain class Svc0. unbuild's total is larger only because declaration mode compatible writes a third .d.ts copy. Neither output was minified; if you minify, see the Terser vs esbuild vs SWC minify post.

Should you switch from tsup to unbuild?

Situation	My pick
Single-entry library that ships types, builds in CI	Either works; unbuild cost about 0.5 s more here
You rebuild constantly without types (local loops)	tsup was 2.2x faster in this test
You want an actively developed tool for the next few years	Plan a move: unbuild, or tsdown as the tsup README suggests
You link the package into an app during development	unbuild, for unbuild --stub
Strict "no warnings" CI and no exports map yet	Fix package.json first or unbuild will fail the build

Bottom line: tsup won on speed (931 ms vs 2034 ms without types, 3.2 s vs 3.7 s with types) and unbuild won on output size and maintenance status. Who should not switch yet: teams on tsup with no build pain and no plan to touch their tooling this quarter. If you are also weighing TypeScript itself, read the TypeScript 7 upgrade post first, because declaration builds here still ran on TS 5.9.

How this was made: I generated the TypeScript fixture, ran the interleaved builds on the ShopperCove test box, and kept the timing and size JSON; the write-up was drafted with AI help and checked against that output.

Sources

• 01github.com/egoist/tsup
• 02tsup.egoist.devhttps://tsup.egoist.dev/
• 03github.com/unjs/unbuild
• 04npmjs.com/package/tsup
• 05npmjs.com/package/unbuild
• 06tsdown.dev/guide/migrate-from-tsup

Related

• 01shoppercove.com/blog/tsx-vs-ts-node
• 02shoppercove.com/blog/rspack-vs-webpack
• 03shoppercove.com/blog/turbo-vs-nx
• 04shoppercove.com/blog/knip-vs-depcheck