head to head · open source
ActivePieces vs cadence
ActivePieces has 24,584 GitHub stars, 4,214 forks, 573 open issues and last shipped 2 days ago. cadence has 9,446 stars, 915 forks, 205 open issues and last shipped 2 days ago. ActivePieces leads on adoption by 160% (24,584 vs 9,446 stars). ActivePieces is written in TypeScript under a custom or non-standard licence; cadence is written in Go under Apache-2.0. ActivePieces has attracted 17% 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. The two share 1 topic tag (workflow-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
| ActivePieces | cadence | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 25K | ★ 9.4K |
| License | Custom / other | Apache-2.0 |
| Written in | TypeScript | Go |
| Last push | 2026-09-18 | 2026-09-18 |
| Forks | ⑂ 4.2K | ⑂ 915 |
| Self-hosting | Yes | Yes |
| Data ownership | Your server | Your server |
pick ActivePieces if
- You weight community size — 25K stars and counting
- You want the Custom / other license terms
- Your stack matches TypeScript
- 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 ActivePieces
ActivePieces is an open source, TypeScript based no code automation platform for building AI workflows and exposing integrations as MCP servers, aimed at both technical and non technical users who want Zapier style automation while keeping control of their own data.
read the full ActivePieces 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 ActivePieces or cadence more popular?
ActivePieces has 24,584 GitHub stars and cadence has 9,446. ActivePieces has the larger community by that measure.
Are ActivePieces and cadence free?
Both are open source. ActivePieces 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 ActivePieces and cadence?
ActivePieces is written in TypeScript 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, ActivePieces or cadence?
Choose ActivePieces if you want the larger community (24,584 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.