head to head · open source
airflow vs duckle
airflow has 47,350 GitHub stars, 18,299 forks, 1,831 open issues and last shipped yesterday. duckle has 1,546 stars, 120 forks, 80 open issues and last shipped 2 days ago. airflow leads on adoption by 2,963% (47,350 vs 1,546 stars). airflow is written in Python under Apache-2.0; duckle is written in Rust under Apache-2.0. airflow has attracted 39% as many forks as stars, duckle 8%. airflow was the more recently maintained of the two, and both are self-hostable with no licence fee. The two share 4 topic tags (data-engineering, data-integration, elt, etl), 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
| airflow | duckle | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 47K | ★ 1.5K |
| License | Apache-2.0 | Apache-2.0 |
| Written in | Python | Rust |
| Last push | 2026-11-02 | 2026-11-01 |
| Forks | ⑂ 18K | ⑂ 120 |
| Self-hosting | Yes | Yes |
| Data ownership | Your server | Your server |
pick airflow if
- You weight community size — 47K stars and counting
- You want the Apache-2.0 license terms
- Your stack matches Python
- You value the larger contributor base for long-term maintenance
pick duckle if
- You want the duckle feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the Apache-2.0 license terms
- Your stack matches Rust
- You evaluated both and duckle fits your workflow better
About airflow
Apache Airflow Apache Airflow (or simply Airflow) is a platform to programmatically author, schedule, and monitor workflows. When workflows are defined as code, they become more maintainable, versionable, testable, and collaborative. Use Airflow to author workflows (Dags) that orchestrate tasks. The Airflow scheduler executes your tasks on an array of workers while following the specified dependencies. Rich command line utilities make performing complex surgeries on Dags a snap. The rich user interface makes it easy to visualize pipelines running in production, monitor progress, and troubleshoot issues when…
read the full airflow overview →
About duckle
Pipelines you own. Author and deploy to your servers or cloud. Duckle is an open source ETL platform for teams who want their pipelines running on their own infrastructure. Author on a canvas, in Python or in SQL, then ship the same file to your own server or cloud account: duckle runner serve runs it headless on a schedule, in Docker or on a box you own, with a web console, roles and an audit trail. Every pipeline is one file in git, so it outlives whoever wrote it. It compiles to SQL on DuckDB and uses every core you give the box, so a bigger instance is a faster pipeline: 96 million rows out of Postgres to…
read the full duckle overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is airflow or duckle more popular?
airflow has 47,350 GitHub stars and duckle has 1,546. airflow has the larger community by that measure.
Are airflow and duckle free?
Both are open source. airflow is licensed under Apache-2.0 and duckle under Apache-2.0. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between airflow and duckle?
airflow is written in Python and duckle in Rust. The practical differences are community size, licence terms, language stack and release cadence — all compared in the table above.
Which should I choose, airflow or duckle?
Choose airflow if you want the larger community (47,350 stars) or its Apache-2.0 licence terms. Choose duckle if its feature set, stack or Apache-2.0 licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.