head to head · open source
conductor vs Archon
conductor has 32,207 GitHub stars, 1,010 forks, 253 open issues and last shipped yesterday. Archon has 23,495 stars, 3,474 forks, 321 open issues and last shipped yesterday. conductor leads on adoption by 37% (32,207 vs 23,495 stars). conductor is written in Java under Apache-2.0; Archon is written in TypeScript under MIT. conductor has attracted 3% as many forks as stars, Archon 15%. conductor was the more recently maintained of the two, and both are self-hostable with no licence fee. The two share 1 topic tag (workflow-engine), 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
| conductor | Archon | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 32K | ★ 23K |
| License | Apache-2.0 | MIT |
| Written in | Java | TypeScript |
| Last push | 2026-09-17 | 2026-09-17 |
| Forks | ⑂ 1.0K | ⑂ 3.5K |
| Self-hosting | Yes | Yes |
| Data ownership | Your server | Your server |
pick conductor if
- You weight community size — 32K stars and counting
- You want the Apache-2.0 license terms
- Your stack matches Java
- You value the larger contributor base for long-term maintenance
pick Archon if
- You want the Archon feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the MIT license terms
- Your stack matches TypeScript
- You evaluated both and Archon fits your workflow better
About conductor
Conductor is an Apache 2.0 licensed, event driven agentic workflow engine written in Java that provides durable and highly resilient execution for applications and AI agents, aimed at teams running microservices, AI agents, and adaptive workflow graphs that need orchestration they can version, inspect, and recover.
read the full conductor overview →
About Archon
Archon is an open source workflow engine for AI coding agents, written in TypeScript and released under the MIT license. It lives in the AI coding ecosystem, alongside tools such as Claude Code, and is distributed through the Bun runtime and the GitHub CLI. The project describes itself as a harness builder: it lets a developer encode a development process as a YAML workflow and then run that workflow reliably across projects. Workflows are stored in a .archon/workflows/ directory and committed to the repository, so the same definition can be invoked from the CLI, a web UI, Slack, Telegram, or GitHub.…
read the full Archon overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is conductor or Archon more popular?
conductor has 32,207 GitHub stars and Archon has 23,495. conductor has the larger community by that measure.
Are conductor and Archon free?
Both are open source. conductor is licensed under Apache-2.0 and Archon under MIT. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between conductor and Archon?
conductor is written in Java and Archon in TypeScript. The practical differences are community size, licence terms, language stack and release cadence — all compared in the table above.
Which should I choose, conductor or Archon?
Choose conductor if you want the larger community (32,207 stars) or its Apache-2.0 licence terms. Choose Archon if its feature set, stack or MIT licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.