Turborepo and Lerna represent two different philosophies for managing JavaScript monorepos. Turborepo, built with Rust/Go and backed by Vercel, focuses on blazing-fast incremental builds through intelligent caching and task orchestration. Lerna, a veteran in the monorepo space with a massive community footprint, specializes in package versioning and publishing workflows, now maintained as part of the Nx ecosystem.
This comparison matters because choosing the wrong tool can cost hours in build times or create versioning headaches. Turborepo targets teams prioritizing CI/CD speed and simple setup for modern JavaScript projects. Lerna serves teams managing complex multi-package publishing workflows or migrating existing Lerna codebases, especially when paired with Nx for performance gains.
Choose Turborepo if you prioritize simple setup, fast incremental builds, and modern CI/CD workflows without versioning complexity. It's the clear winner for small-to-medium monorepos (under 20 packages) where build speed matters more than coordinated publishing, especially if you're deploying to Vercel or want remote caching without infrastructure overhead. The minimal configuration and immediate performance gains make it ideal for teams wanting monorepo benefits without heavyweight tooling.
Choose Lerna if you manage multiple published npm packages requiring coordinated versioning and semantic release workflows. It remains unmatched for package publishing orchestration, especially in established codebases already using Lerna. For large monorepos (20+ packages) where both versioning and build performance matter, use Lerna for publishing commands but integrate Nx for task execution—this hybrid approach delivers Lerna's versioning expertise with Nx's performance. Avoid standalone Lerna for greenfield projects focused primarily on builds rather than publishing.