head to head · open source
Airbyte vs hop
Airbyte has 22,303 GitHub stars, 5,431 forks, 2,395 open issues and last shipped yesterday. hop has 1,516 stars, 487 forks, 431 open issues and last shipped yesterday. Airbyte leads on adoption by 1,371% (22,303 vs 1,516 stars). Airbyte is written in Python under a custom or non-standard licence; hop is written in Java under Apache-2.0. Airbyte has attracted 24% as many forks as stars, hop 32%. Airbyte was the more recently maintained of the two, and both are self-hostable with no licence fee. The two share 3 topic tags (data-integration, etl, 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.
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Side by side
| Airbyte | hop | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 22K | ★ 1.5K |
| License | Custom / other | Apache-2.0 |
| Written in | Python | Java |
| Last push | 2026-11-02 | 2026-11-02 |
| Forks | ⑂ 5.4K | ⑂ 487 |
| 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 hop if
- You want the hop 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 hop fits your workflow better
About Airbyte
Open source data movement for ELT pipelines and AI agents — from APIs, databases & files to warehouses, lakes, and AI applications We believe that only an open source solution to data movement can cover the long tail of data sources while empowering data engineers to customize existing connectors. Our ultimate vision is to help you move data from any source to any destination — whether that destination is a data warehouse, a data lake, or an AI agent. Airbyte provides a catalog of 600+ connectors for APIs, databases, data warehouses, data lakes, and AI applications. Screenshot taken from Airbyte Cloud . Pick the…
read the full Airbyte overview →
About hop
Apache Hop The Hop Orchestration Platform aims to facilitate all aspects of data and metadata orchestration. Trying Apache Hop Apache Hop aims to offer you a very stable user experience. Any feedback that you might have is welcome! If you find that something is not working, have an idea for a new feature or simply if something is not to your liking, let us know! Your help is invaluable. There are various things you can do to help Hop continue moving forward quickly: Log bugs, request features in GitHub Ask questions in the mailing lists or GitHub Discussions Help us write or fix documentation (lot of…
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Frequently asked questions
Is Airbyte or hop more popular?
Airbyte has 22,303 GitHub stars and hop has 1,516. Airbyte has the larger community by that measure.
Are Airbyte and hop free?
Both are open source. Airbyte has no licence declared in this registry, and hop is licensed under Apache-2.0. Both are free to self-host.
What is the difference between Airbyte and hop?
Airbyte is written in Python and hop 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 hop?
Choose Airbyte if you want the larger community (22,303 stars) or its Custom / other licence terms. Choose hop if its feature set, stack or Apache-2.0 licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.