head to head · open source
cadence vs Ethora
cadence has 9,446 GitHub stars, 915 forks, 205 open issues and last shipped 2 days ago. Ethora has 546 stars, 111 forks, 2 open issues and last shipped 2 days ago. cadence leads on adoption by 1,630% (9,446 vs 546 stars). cadence is written in Go under Apache-2.0; Ethora is written in JavaScript under Apache-2.0. cadence has attracted 10% as many forks as stars, Ethora 20%. 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
| cadence | Ethora | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 9.4K | ★ 546 |
| License | Apache-2.0 | Apache-2.0 |
| Written in | Go | JavaScript |
| Last push | 2026-09-18 | 2026-09-18 |
| Forks | ⑂ 915 | ⑂ 111 |
| Self-hosting | Yes | Yes |
| Data ownership | Your server | Your server |
pick cadence if
- You weight community size — 9.4K 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 Ethora if
- You want the Ethora feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the Apache-2.0 license terms
- Your stack matches JavaScript
- You evaluated both and Ethora fits your workflow better
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 →
About Ethora
Ethora is an Apache 2.0 licensed chat, AI and messaging SDK monorepo that adds real time messaging, prebuilt chat UI, bots and backend services to web, iOS and Android applications, and it is aimed at product teams that would rather integrate a messaging layer than assemble one.
read the full Ethora overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is cadence or Ethora more popular?
cadence has 9,446 GitHub stars and Ethora has 546. cadence has the larger community by that measure.
Are cadence and Ethora free?
Both are open source. cadence is licensed under Apache-2.0 and Ethora under Apache-2.0. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between cadence and Ethora?
cadence is written in Go and Ethora in JavaScript. The practical differences are community size, licence terms, language stack and release cadence — all compared in the table above.
Which should I choose, cadence or Ethora?
Choose cadence if you want the larger community (9,446 stars) or its Apache-2.0 licence terms. Choose Ethora if its feature set, stack or Apache-2.0 licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.