head to head · open source
Automatisch vs cadence
Automatisch has 13,975 GitHub stars, 1,064 forks, 287 open issues and last shipped 7 months ago. cadence has 9,446 stars, 915 forks, 205 open issues and last shipped 2 days ago. Automatisch leads on adoption by 48% (13,975 vs 9,446 stars). Automatisch is written in JavaScript under a custom or non-standard licence; cadence is written in Go under Apache-2.0. Automatisch has attracted 8% as many forks as stars, cadence 10%. cadence 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
| Automatisch | cadence | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 14K | ★ 9.4K |
| License | Custom / other | Apache-2.0 |
| Written in | JavaScript | Go |
| Last push | 2026-02-11 | 2026-09-18 |
| Forks | ⑂ 1.1K | ⑂ 915 |
| Self-hosting | Yes | Yes |
| Data ownership | Your server | Your server |
pick Automatisch if
- You weight community size — 14K stars and counting
- You want the Custom / other license terms
- Your stack matches JavaScript
- You value the larger contributor base for long-term maintenance
pick cadence if
- You want the cadence 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 cadence fits your workflow better
About Automatisch
Automatisch is an open source integration platform for workflow automation, positioned as an alternative to Zapier. It lives in the JavaScript, low code, no code, self hosted, and automation ecosystem, and it is categorized under Productivity & Utilities / Automation. The project lets users connect services such as Twitter and Slack so that business processes can be automated without writing code.
read the full Automatisch overview →
About cadence
Cadence is an open source orchestration engine for running asynchronous, long running business logic in a fault tolerant way. Written in Go under the Apache 2.0 license, it lives in the distributed systems and workflow automation space, and the project has been open source since 2017. This repository holds the core engine plus supporting tools: the CLI, schema management, a benchmark suite, and a canary. Client libraries for Go and Java are official, while Python and Ruby SDKs come from the community, and iWF can be layered on top as a DSL framework.
read the full cadence overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is Automatisch or cadence more popular?
Automatisch has 13,975 GitHub stars and cadence has 9,446. Automatisch has the larger community by that measure.
Are Automatisch and cadence free?
Both are open source. Automatisch has no licence declared in this registry, and cadence is licensed under Apache-2.0. Both are free to self-host.
What is the difference between Automatisch and cadence?
Automatisch is written in JavaScript and cadence 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, Automatisch or cadence?
Choose Automatisch if you want the larger community (13,975 stars) or its Custom / other licence terms. Choose cadence if its feature set, stack or Apache-2.0 licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.