Skip to main content
Bun itself is MIT-licensed.

JavaScriptCore

Bun statically links JavaScriptCore (and WebKit), which is LGPL-2 licensed. WebCore files from WebKit are also licensed under LGPL-2. Per LGPL-2:
(1) If you statically link against an LGPL’d library, you must also provide your application in an object (not necessarily source) format, so that a user has the opportunity to modify the library and relink the application.
Bun’s patched version of WebKit lives at https://github.com/oven-sh/webkit. To relink Bun with changes:
  • git clone https://github.com/oven-sh/WebKit vendor/WebKit
  • git -C vendor/WebKit checkout <commit> (the commit hash in WEBKIT_VERSION in scripts/build/deps/webkit.ts)
  • bun run build:local
bun run build:local compiles JavaScriptCore, compiles Bun’s .cpp bindings for JavaScriptCore (the object files that use JavaScriptCore), and outputs a new bun binary with your changes.

Linked libraries

Bun statically links these libraries:
LibraryLicense
boringsslseveral licenses
brotliMIT
libarchiveseveral licenses
lol-htmlBSD 3-Clause
mimallocMIT
picohttpdual-licensed under the Perl License or the MIT License
zstddual-licensed under the BSD License or GPLv2 license
simdutfApache 2.0
tinyccLGPL v2.1
uSocketsApache 2.0
zlib-ngzlib
c-aresMIT licensed
libicu 72license here
libbase64BSD 2-Clause
libuv (on Windows)MIT
libdeflateMIT
A fork of uWebsocketsApache 2.0 licensed
Parts of Tigerbeetle’s IO codeApache 2.0 licensed

Polyfills

For compatibility, Bun embeds the following packages into its binary and injects them if imported.

Additional credits

  • Bun’s JS transpiler, CSS lexer, and Node.js module resolver source code is a port of @evanw’s esbuild project.
  • Credit to @kipply for the name “Bun”.