head to head · open source
Kestra vs Archon
Kestra has 30,122 GitHub stars, 3,495 forks, 713 open issues and last shipped yesterday. Archon has 23,807 stars, 3,518 forks, 321 open issues and last shipped yesterday. Kestra leads on adoption by 27% (30,122 vs 23,807 stars). Kestra is written in Java under Apache-2.0; Archon is written in TypeScript under MIT. Kestra has attracted 12% as many forks as stars, Archon 15%. Kestra was the more recently maintained of the two, and both are self-hostable with no licence fee. The two share 1 topic tag (automation), 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
| Kestra | Archon | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 30K | ★ 24K |
| License | Apache-2.0 | MIT |
| Written in | Java | TypeScript |
| Last push | 2026-11-02 | 2026-11-02 |
| Forks | ⑂ 3.5K | ⑂ 3.5K |
| Self-hosting | Yes | Yes |
| Data ownership | Your server | Your server |
pick Kestra if
- You weight community size — 30K 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 Kestra
Open source orchestration platform for data, AI, and infrastructure workflows Click on the image to learn how to get started with Kestra in 3 minutes. 🌟 What is Kestra? Kestra is an open source, event driven orchestration platform for data, AI, and infrastructure workflows. It unifies scheduled and event driven automation behind a declarative, language agnostic interface. By bringing Infrastructure as Code best practices to your data, process, and microservice pipelines, you can build reliable workflows directly from the UI in just a few lines of YAML, let the built in AI Copilot write them for you, or generate…
read the full Kestra overview →
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 →
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Frequently asked questions
Is Kestra or Archon more popular?
Kestra has 30,122 GitHub stars and Archon has 23,807. Kestra has the larger community by that measure.
Are Kestra and Archon free?
Both are open source. Kestra is licensed under Apache-2.0 and Archon under MIT. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between Kestra and Archon?
Kestra 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, Kestra or Archon?
Choose Kestra if you want the larger community (30,122 stars) or its Apache-2.0 licence terms. Choose Archon if its feature set, stack or MIT licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.