head to head · open source
Archon vs Dagu
Archon has 23,823 GitHub stars, 3,520 forks, 321 open issues and last shipped 2 days ago. Dagu has 4,542 stars, 394 forks, 67 open issues and last shipped yesterday. Archon leads on adoption by 425% (23,823 vs 4,542 stars). Archon is written in TypeScript under MIT; Dagu is written in Go under GPL-3.0. Archon has attracted 15% as many forks as stars, Dagu 9%. Dagu 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
| Archon | Dagu | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 24K | ★ 4.5K |
| License | MIT | GPL-3.0 |
| Written in | TypeScript | Go |
| Last push | 2026-11-03 | 2026-11-04 |
| Forks | ⑂ 3.5K | ⑂ 394 |
| Self-hosting | Yes | Yes |
| Data ownership | Your server | Your server |
pick Archon if
- You weight community size — 24K stars and counting
- You want the MIT license terms
- Your stack matches TypeScript
- You value the larger contributor base for long-term maintenance
pick Dagu if
- You want the Dagu feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the GPL-3.0 license terms
- Your stack matches Go
- You evaluated both and Dagu fits your workflow better
About Archon
Archon The first open source harness builder for AI coding. Make AI coding deterministic and repeatable. Archon is a workflow engine for AI coding agents. Define your development processes as YAML workflows planning, implementation, validation, code review, PR creation and run them reliably across all your projects. Like what Dockerfiles did for infrastructure and GitHub Actions did for CI/CD Archon does for AI coding workflows. Think n8n, but for software development. Why Archon? When you ask an AI agent to "fix this bug", what happens depends on the model's mood. It might skip planning. It might forget to run…
read the full Archon overview →
About Dagu
Docs · CLI · API · Examples · Live demo (username/password: demouser) · Discord Dagu Dagu is a local first workflow engine for operations and internal automation. It is open source and self hostable: a single binary with a built in Web UI, no external database or message broker, running on Linux, macOS, and Windows. Define DAGs in a declarative YAML format. It natively supports shell commands, Docker containers, Kubernetes Jobs, remote commands via SSH, and more through Dagu Actions. Dagu turns existing scripts and runbooks into production workflows with scheduling, retries, human tasks, and run history. It runs…
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Frequently asked questions
Is Archon or Dagu more popular?
Archon has 23,823 GitHub stars and Dagu has 4,542. Archon has the larger community by that measure.
Are Archon and Dagu free?
Both are open source. Archon is licensed under MIT and Dagu under GPL-3.0. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between Archon and Dagu?
Archon is written in TypeScript and Dagu 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, Archon or Dagu?
Choose Archon if you want the larger community (23,823 stars) or its MIT licence terms. Choose Dagu if its feature set, stack or GPL-3.0 licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.