head to head · open source
cadence vs shesha-framework
cadence has 9,446 GitHub stars, 915 forks, 205 open issues and last shipped 2 days ago. shesha-framework has 509 stars, 143 forks, 430 open issues and last shipped 2 days ago. cadence leads on adoption by 1,756% (9,446 vs 509 stars). cadence is written in Go under Apache-2.0; shesha-framework is written in TypeScript under Apache-2.0. cadence has attracted 10% as many forks as stars, shesha-framework 28%. 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
| cadence | shesha-framework | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 9.4K | ★ 509 |
| License | Apache-2.0 | Apache-2.0 |
| Written in | Go | TypeScript |
| Last push | 2026-09-18 | 2026-09-18 |
| Forks | ⑂ 915 | ⑂ 143 |
| 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 shesha-framework if
- You want the shesha-framework feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the Apache-2.0 license terms
- Your stack matches TypeScript
- You evaluated both and shesha-framework 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 shesha-framework
Shesha is an open source low code development framework for .NET developers that builds business applications on ASP.NET Core, the ABP Framework, React and Next.js while cutting the amount of code a typical project needs by more than 80 percent.
read the full shesha-framework overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is cadence or shesha-framework more popular?
cadence has 9,446 GitHub stars and shesha-framework has 509. cadence has the larger community by that measure.
Are cadence and shesha-framework free?
Both are open source. cadence is licensed under Apache-2.0 and shesha-framework under Apache-2.0. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between cadence and shesha-framework?
cadence is written in Go and shesha-framework 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, cadence or shesha-framework?
Choose cadence if you want the larger community (9,446 stars) or its Apache-2.0 licence terms. Choose shesha-framework if its feature set, stack or Apache-2.0 licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.