head to head · open source
ansible vs workflow-core
ansible has 70,721 GitHub stars, 24,333 forks, 837 open issues and last shipped yesterday. workflow-core has 5,926 stars, 1,262 forks, 133 open issues and last shipped 3 days ago. ansible leads on adoption by 1,093% (70,721 vs 5,926 stars). ansible is written in Python under GPL-3.0; workflow-core is written in C# under MIT. ansible has attracted 34% as many forks as stars, workflow-core 21%. 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 | workflow-core | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 71K | ★ 5.9K |
| License | GPL-3.0 | MIT |
| Written in | Python | C# |
| Last push | 2026-09-18 | 2026-09-16 |
| Forks | ⑂ 24K | ⑂ 1.3K |
| 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 workflow-core if
- You want the workflow-core feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the MIT license terms
- Your stack matches C#
- You evaluated both and workflow-core 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 workflow-core
Workflow Core is a lightweight, embeddable workflow engine targeting .NET Standard, written in C and released under the MIT license. It lives in the .NET ecosystem, distributed as NuGet packages, and is built around the idea of long running processes that contain multiple tasks and must track their state between steps. Rather than running as a separate server, it is a library that is hosted inside an application, and it exposes a fluent C API for defining workflows. Workflows are expressed as a starting step followed by chained steps, and the same class can declare inputs and outputs that move data from one step …
read the full workflow-core overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is ansible or workflow-core more popular?
ansible has 70,721 GitHub stars and workflow-core has 5,926. ansible has the larger community by that measure.
Are ansible and workflow-core free?
Both are open source. ansible is licensed under GPL-3.0 and workflow-core under MIT. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between ansible and workflow-core?
ansible is written in Python and workflow-core in C#. 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 workflow-core?
Choose ansible if you want the larger community (70,721 stars) or its GPL-3.0 licence terms. Choose workflow-core if its feature set, stack or MIT licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.