head to head · open source
argo-cd vs dagger
argo-cd has 24,178 GitHub stars, 7,852 forks, 4,362 open issues and last shipped yesterday. dagger has 16,261 stars, 924 forks, 156 open issues and last shipped yesterday. argo-cd leads on adoption by 49% (24,178 vs 16,261 stars). argo-cd is written in Go under Apache-2.0; dagger is written in Go under Apache-2.0. argo-cd has attracted 32% as many forks as stars, dagger 6%. dagger was the more recently maintained of the two, and both are self-hostable with no licence fee. The two share 4 topic tags (ci-cd, continuous-deployment, devops, docker), 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
| argo-cd | dagger | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 24K | ★ 16K |
| License | Apache-2.0 | Apache-2.0 |
| Written in | Go | Go |
| Last push | 2026-09-17 | 2026-09-17 |
| Forks | ⑂ 7.9K | ⑂ 924 |
| Self-hosting | Yes | Yes |
| Data ownership | Your server | Your server |
pick argo-cd if
- You weight community size — 24K stars and counting
- You want the Apache-2.0 license terms
- Your stack matches Go
- You value the larger contributor base for long-term maintenance
pick dagger if
- You want the dagger feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the Apache-2.0 license terms
- Your stack matches Go
- You evaluated both and dagger fits your workflow better
About argo-cd
Argo CD is a declarative GitOps continuous delivery tool for Kubernetes. It lives in the cloud native ecosystem and is written in Go under the Apache 2.0 license. The project describes itself as a tool for declarative continuous delivery and continuous deployment, and its application definitions, configurations, and environments are expected to be declarative and version controlled. It sits in the Infrastructure and Operations category, specifically cloud infrastructure management, and it has been developed in the open for roughly nine years, with a large community footprint measured in tens of thousands of stars…
read the full argo-cd overview →
About dagger
Dagger is an open source automation engine for software delivery, written in Go and released under the Apache 2.0 license. It builds, tests and ships any codebase, and it runs locally, inside a CI server, or directly in the cloud. The project lives in the cloud infrastructure and CI/CD ecosystem, where it occupies the space normally filled by shell scripts and proprietary pipeline YAML. It has been developed for roughly seven years and carries a substantial community footprint, with more than sixteen thousand stars and over nine hundred forks on GitHub.
read the full dagger overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is argo-cd or dagger more popular?
argo-cd has 24,178 GitHub stars and dagger has 16,261. argo-cd has the larger community by that measure.
Are argo-cd and dagger free?
Both are open source. argo-cd is licensed under Apache-2.0 and dagger under Apache-2.0. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between argo-cd and dagger?
argo-cd is written in Go and dagger 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, argo-cd or dagger?
Choose argo-cd if you want the larger community (24,178 stars) or its Apache-2.0 licence terms. Choose dagger if its feature set, stack or Apache-2.0 licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.