head to head · open source
ansible vs gocron
ansible has 70,721 GitHub stars, 24,333 forks, 837 open issues and last shipped yesterday. gocron has 809 stars, 62 forks, 10 open issues and last shipped yesterday. ansible leads on adoption by 8,642% (70,721 vs 809 stars). ansible is written in Python under GPL-3.0; gocron is written in Go under MIT. ansible has attracted 34% as many forks as stars, gocron 8%. 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 | gocron | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 71K | ★ 809 |
| License | GPL-3.0 | MIT |
| Written in | Python | Go |
| Last push | 2026-09-18 | 2026-09-18 |
| Forks | ⑂ 24K | ⑂ 62 |
| 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 gocron if
- You want the gocron feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the MIT license terms
- Your stack matches Go
- You evaluated both and gocron 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 gocron
gocron is a lightweight, MIT licensed distributed scheduled task management system written in Go, intended for operators and platform teams who want to run, observe and control cron style jobs across more than one machine instead of maintaining per host Linux crontab entries.
read the full gocron overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is ansible or gocron more popular?
ansible has 70,721 GitHub stars and gocron has 809. ansible has the larger community by that measure.
Are ansible and gocron free?
Both are open source. ansible is licensed under GPL-3.0 and gocron under MIT. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between ansible and gocron?
ansible is written in Python and gocron 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 gocron?
Choose ansible if you want the larger community (70,721 stars) or its GPL-3.0 licence terms. Choose gocron if its feature set, stack or MIT licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.