head to head · open source
Airbyte vs chunjun
Airbyte has 22,082 GitHub stars, 5,350 forks, 2,395 open issues and last shipped yesterday. chunjun has 4,101 stars, 1,683 forks, 287 open issues and last shipped 10 months ago. Airbyte leads on adoption by 438% (22,082 vs 4,101 stars). Airbyte is written in Python under a custom or non-standard licence; chunjun is written in Java under Apache-2.0. Airbyte has attracted 24% as many forks as stars, chunjun 41%. Airbyte was the more recently maintained of the two, and both are self-hostable with no licence fee. The two share 2 topic tags (data-integration, java), so they are genuine substitutes rather than adjacent tools.
Two open source projects, one decision. Both are free and self-hostable — the differences are community size, license terms, language stack and release pace.
← all 8884 open source comparisons
Side by side
| Airbyte | chunjun | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 22K | ★ 4.1K |
| License | Custom / other | Apache-2.0 |
| Written in | Python | Java |
| Last push | 2026-09-17 | 2025-12-02 |
| Forks | ⑂ 5.3K | ⑂ 1.7K |
| Self-hosting | Yes | Yes |
| Data ownership | Your server | Your server |
pick Airbyte if
- You weight community size — 22K stars and counting
- You want the Custom / other license terms
- Your stack matches Python
- You value the larger contributor base for long-term maintenance
pick chunjun if
- You want the chunjun feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the Apache-2.0 license terms
- Your stack matches Java
- You evaluated both and chunjun fits your workflow better
About Airbyte
Airbyte open source data movement project. It lives in data engineering and data integration ecosystem. It moves data from APIs, databases, and files into warehouses, data lakes, and AI applications. It supports ELT and ETL pipelines. It also supports AI agents needing business data.
read the full Airbyte overview →
About chunjun
ChunJun is a Java based, Apache 2.0 licensed data integration framework that lives in the Apache Flink big data ecosystem. It is a distributed framework for synchronization and calculation between heterogeneous data sources, and it was initially known as FlinkX before being renamed ChunJun on February 22, 2022.
read the full chunjun overview →
More in Data & Analytics
Related comparisons
More Data Engineering & Integration projects
Compare either of these against the rest of the Data Engineering & Integration field.
Frequently asked questions
Is Airbyte or chunjun more popular?
Airbyte has 22,082 GitHub stars and chunjun has 4,101. Airbyte has the larger community by that measure.
Are Airbyte and chunjun free?
Both are open source. Airbyte has no licence declared in this registry, and chunjun is licensed under Apache-2.0. Both are free to self-host.
What is the difference between Airbyte and chunjun?
Airbyte is written in Python and chunjun in Java. The practical differences are community size, licence terms, language stack and release cadence — all compared in the table above.
Which should I choose, Airbyte or chunjun?
Choose Airbyte if you want the larger community (22,082 stars) or its Custom / other licence terms. Choose chunjun if its feature set, stack or Apache-2.0 licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.