head to head · open source
compose vs earthly
compose has 38,175 GitHub stars, 5,817 forks, 111 open issues and last shipped yesterday. earthly has 12,047 stars, 457 forks, 744 open issues and last shipped 11 months ago. compose leads on adoption by 217% (38,175 vs 12,047 stars). compose is written in Go under Apache-2.0; earthly is written in Go under MPL-2.0. compose has attracted 15% as many forks as stars, earthly 4%. compose 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
| compose | earthly | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 38K | ★ 12K |
| License | Apache-2.0 | MPL-2.0 |
| Written in | Go | Go |
| Last push | 2026-09-17 | 2025-10-23 |
| Forks | ⑂ 5.8K | ⑂ 457 |
| Self-hosting | Yes | Yes |
| Data ownership | Your server | Your server |
pick compose if
- You weight community size — 38K 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 earthly if
- You want the earthly feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the MPL-2.0 license terms
- Your stack matches Go
- You evaluated both and earthly fits your workflow better
About compose
Docker Compose is an Apache 2.0 licensed Go tool that defines and runs multi container applications on Docker from a single Compose file, aimed at developers and operators who need several containers to start together as one isolated application.
read the full compose overview →
About earthly
Earthly is a container based build and CI/CD framework that runs every pipeline inside containers so the same build executes identically on a laptop, a colleague's machine, or any CI system, and it is built for engineers and platform teams who maintain build logic across monorepos or polyrepos and are comfortable with Dockerfile and Makefile style syntax.
read the full earthly overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is compose or earthly more popular?
compose has 38,175 GitHub stars and earthly has 12,047. compose has the larger community by that measure.
Are compose and earthly free?
Both are open source. compose is licensed under Apache-2.0 and earthly under MPL-2.0. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between compose and earthly?
compose is written in Go and earthly 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, compose or earthly?
Choose compose if you want the larger community (38,175 stars) or its Apache-2.0 licence terms. Choose earthly if its feature set, stack or MPL-2.0 licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.