Turborepo and Nx are the two leading monorepo build orchestration tools in the JavaScript ecosystem. Turborepo, developed by Vercel, focuses on speed and simplicity with a minimalist configuration approach and Go-based execution engine. Nx, created by Nrwl (now acquired by Lerna), offers comprehensive workspace management with powerful code generation, dependency graphs, and plugin ecosystem for enterprise-scale projects.
This comparison matters because choosing the wrong monorepo tool creates significant technical debt—migration requires restructuring task pipelines, reconfiguring CI/CD, and retraining teams. Turborepo targets solo developers and small teams who need fast builds without ceremony, particularly those using Next.js or Vercel deployments. Nx appeals to large engineering organizations requiring enforced conventions, affected-based testing, and sophisticated workspace tooling across dozens of packages.
Choose Turborepo if you need immediate build speed improvements without restructuring existing projects. It's the pragmatic choice for small-to-medium monorepos (2-30 packages) where developer velocity and minimal configuration overhead matter more than comprehensive workspace tooling. Teams using Next.js, Vercel deployments, or migrating from simple lerna setups will find Turborepo's drop-in approach ideal—you keep existing workflows and gain caching/parallelization instantly.
Choose Nx for enterprise monorepos requiring enforced architecture, code generation consistency, and sophisticated CI optimization. If you have 50+ packages, multiple teams touching shared code, or need dependency visualization and affected-based testing, Nx's complexity pays dividends. The upfront investment in learning Nx conventions becomes worthwhile when preventing architectural decay and optimizing CI costs across large codebases. Nx is the only realistic choice when workspace governance and long-term maintainability outweigh initial setup friction.