Software Alternatives, Accelerators & Startups

build2 VS Meson

Compare build2 VS Meson and see what are their differences

build2 logo build2

build2 is an open-source (MIT), cross-platform build toolchain for developing and packaging C and...

Meson logo Meson

Meson is an open source build system meant to be both extremely fast, and, even more importantly...
  • build2 Landing page
    Landing page //
    2021-08-12
  • Meson Landing page
    Landing page //
    2019-03-04

build2 videos

Review of LUXA’s hard gel BUILD2 in BLUSH | NAILS | Nail overlay

Meson videos

Meson RTA by Newgen Vape - Flavour Banger - Review & Rebuild

More videos:

  • Tutorial - MESON RTA by NEWGEN - Review & Build Tutorial!
  • Review - NewGen Vape Meson RTA Review - ...it's all down to the price...

Category Popularity

0-100% (relative to build2 and Meson)
Front End Package Manager
Package Manager
100 100%
0% 0
JavaScript Package Manager
Developer Tools
100 100%
0% 0

User comments

Share your experience with using build2 and Meson. For example, how are they different and which one is better?
Log in or Post with

Social recommendations and mentions

Based on our record, Meson should be more popular than build2. It has been mentiond 43 times since March 2021. We are tracking product recommendations and mentions on various public social media platforms and blogs. They can help you identify which product is more popular and what people think of it.

build2 mentions (16)

  • C++ Papercuts
    As the name suggests, this wraps the whatever build system that the dependency is using rather than replacing it with Meson. Say if you depend on Boost and Qt, you will end up using both Boost Build and CMake in addition to Meson (most likely there will be a couple of more build systems if you are also building Boost's and Qt's own dependencies such as ICU). This has two major drawbacks: 1. The build in... - Source: Hacker News / 9 months ago
  • Sharing Saturday #472
    Which reminds me that I could package libtcode for build2 as that's what I'm using for MEGASTRUCTURES. I already packaged ENTT and fmt before and it's available on the OSS repository so it might be quite easy to do if libtcod dont have too many dependencies. Source: 11 months ago
  • Sharing Saturday #469
    After build2 devs added a missing feature that was preventing me from correctly running the python scripts from godot-cpp that generates the C++ bindings (the build2 devs were actually hitting similar issues and I was lucky to reach it while they were working on a solution), I managed to complete a working version of the build2 package of godot-cpp. As a reminder, godot-cpp is the library you need to use that... Source: 12 months ago
  • Sharing Saturday #467
    The first step is to do some scaffolding to easily build my C++ model from Prototype 1 as a Godot Extension, which also implies building godot-cpp which can be done with Scons or CMake easily as their scripts are provided, but I actually want to use build2 which is what I like to use these days in my own projects in C++. I could build godot-cpp in CMake and then link to it using my project under build2 but I kind... Source: about 1 year ago
  • CPP, C++ Pain Points from the results of the 2023 Annual C++ Developer Survey reviewed
    On the subject of the difficulties with setting up a CI pipeline, I want to give a shout-out to Build2, which is incredible in this regard. Source: about 1 year ago
View more

Meson mentions (43)

  • Rust Without Crates.io
    I went to mesonbuild.org and it doesn't match the description (some sort of betting site? I didn't stick around ...), and a search turned up: https://mesonbuild.com/. - Source: Hacker News / 7 months ago
  • Makefile Tutorial
    Came here to post the same. The answer for How to build software? is Meson[1] for C and C++ and also other languages. Works well on Windows and Mac, too. I’ve written a small Makefile to learn the basic and backgrounds. Make is fine. But the next high-level would have been Autotools, which is an intimidating and weird set of tools. Most new stuff written in C/C++ use now Meson and it feels sane. [1]... - Source: Hacker News / 8 months ago
  • CMake x make?
    If you are very fortunate, you'll be able to choose something else. I like meson myself: it looks a bit like python, it's popular, small, simple, well-documented, easy to install and update, and it works well everywhere. Source: 9 months ago
  • C++ Papercuts
    I suggest changing the build tool. Meson improved C and C++ a lot: https://mesonbuild.com/ The dependency declaration and auto-detection is nice. But the hidden extra is WrapDB, built-in package management (if wanted):
        https://mesonbuild.com/Wrap-dependency-system-manual.html.
    - Source: Hacker News / 9 months ago
  • A Modern C Development Environment
    > C's only REAL problem (in my opinion) which is the lack of dependency management. Most everything else can be done with a makefile and a half decent editor. Care to hear about our lord and saviour Meson? Both of your quoted problems are mutually incompatible: dependency management isn't the job of the compiler, it's a job for the build or host system. If you want to keep writing makefiles, be prepared to write... - Source: Hacker News / 10 months ago
View more

What are some alternatives?

When comparing build2 and Meson, you can also consider the following products

Conan - Conan is an Action-Adventure, Hack and Slash and Single-player video game developed by Nihilistic Software and published by THQ.

Ninja Build - Ninja is a small build system with a focus on speed.

Vcpkg - C++ Library Manager for Windows, Linux, and macOS

GNU Make - GNU Make is a tool which controls the generation of executables and other non-source files of a program from the program's source files.

Hunter package manager - CMake driven cross-platform package manager for C/C++.

CMake - CMake is an open-source, cross-platform family of tools designed to build, test and package software.