head to head · open source
compose vs Hatchet
compose has 38,175 GitHub stars, 5,817 forks, 111 open issues and last shipped yesterday. Hatchet has 7,957 stars, 504 forks, 135 open issues and last shipped yesterday. compose leads on adoption by 380% (38,175 vs 7,957 stars). compose is written in Go under Apache-2.0; Hatchet is written in Go under MIT. compose has attracted 15% as many forks as stars, Hatchet 6%. compose was the more recently maintained of the two, and both are self-hostable with no licence fee. The two share 1 topic tag (golang), 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.
← all 8884 open source comparisons
Side by side
| compose | Hatchet | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 38K | ★ 8.0K |
| License | Apache-2.0 | MIT |
| Written in | Go | Go |
| Last push | 2026-09-17 | 2026-09-17 |
| Forks | ⑂ 5.8K | ⑂ 504 |
| 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 Hatchet if
- You want the Hatchet feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the MIT license terms
- Your stack matches Go
- You evaluated both and Hatchet 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 Hatchet
Hatchet is an MIT licensed, Go based orchestration engine for background tasks, AI agents, and durable workflows, built for teams that need reliable queueing, retries, and observability while writing workers in Python, TypeScript, Go, or Ruby.
read the full Hatchet overview →
More in Infrastructure & Operations
Related comparisons
More Orchestration & Scheduling projects
Compare either of these against the rest of the Orchestration & Scheduling field.
Frequently asked questions
Is compose or Hatchet more popular?
compose has 38,175 GitHub stars and Hatchet has 7,957. compose has the larger community by that measure.
Are compose and Hatchet free?
Both are open source. compose is licensed under Apache-2.0 and Hatchet under MIT. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between compose and Hatchet?
compose is written in Go and Hatchet 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 Hatchet?
Choose compose if you want the larger community (38,175 stars) or its Apache-2.0 licence terms. Choose Hatchet if its feature set, stack or MIT licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.