head to head · open source
ansible vs earthly
ansible has 70,721 GitHub stars, 24,333 forks, 837 open issues and last shipped yesterday. earthly has 12,047 stars, 457 forks, 744 open issues and last shipped 11 months ago. ansible leads on adoption by 487% (70,721 vs 12,047 stars). ansible is written in Python under GPL-3.0; earthly is written in Go under MPL-2.0. ansible has attracted 34% as many forks as stars, earthly 4%. ansible was the more recently maintained of the two, and both are self-hostable with no licence fee.
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
| ansible | earthly | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 71K | ★ 12K |
| License | GPL-3.0 | MPL-2.0 |
| Written in | Python | Go |
| Last push | 2026-09-18 | 2025-10-23 |
| Forks | ⑂ 24K | ⑂ 457 |
| Self-hosting | Yes | Yes |
| Data ownership | Your server | Your server |
pick ansible if
- You weight community size — 71K stars and counting
- You want the GPL-3.0 license terms
- Your stack matches Python
- You value the larger contributor base for long-term maintenance
pick earthly if
- You want the earthly feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the MPL-2.0 license terms
- Your stack matches Go
- You evaluated both and earthly fits your workflow better
About ansible
Ansible is a radically simple, agentless IT automation platform, written in Python and licensed under GPL 3.0, that handles configuration management, application deployment, cloud provisioning, ad hoc task execution, network automation, and multi node orchestration for operators, developers, and network and cloud teams who manage machines over plain SSH.
read the full ansible overview →
About earthly
Earthly is a container based build and CI/CD framework that runs every pipeline inside containers so the same build executes identically on a laptop, a colleague's machine, or any CI system, and it is built for engineers and platform teams who maintain build logic across monorepos or polyrepos and are comfortable with Dockerfile and Makefile style syntax.
read the full earthly overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is ansible or earthly more popular?
ansible has 70,721 GitHub stars and earthly has 12,047. ansible has the larger community by that measure.
Are ansible and earthly free?
Both are open source. ansible is licensed under GPL-3.0 and earthly under MPL-2.0. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between ansible and earthly?
ansible is written in Python and earthly in Go. The practical differences are community size, licence terms, language stack and release cadence — all compared in the table above.
Which should I choose, ansible or earthly?
Choose ansible if you want the larger community (70,721 stars) or its GPL-3.0 licence terms. Choose earthly if its feature set, stack or MPL-2.0 licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.