head to head · open source
compose vs kala
compose has 38,175 GitHub stars, 5,817 forks, 111 open issues and last shipped yesterday. kala has 2,156 stars, 190 forks, 15 open issues and last shipped 10 months ago. compose leads on adoption by 1,671% (38,175 vs 2,156 stars). compose is written in Go under Apache-2.0; kala is written in Go under MIT. compose has attracted 15% as many forks as stars, kala 9%. compose was the more recently maintained of the two, and both are self-hostable with no licence fee. The two share 2 topic tags (go, 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.
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Side by side
| compose | kala | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 38K | ★ 2.2K |
| License | Apache-2.0 | MIT |
| Written in | Go | Go |
| Last push | 2026-09-17 | 2025-12-05 |
| Forks | ⑂ 5.8K | ⑂ 190 |
| 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 kala if
- You want the kala feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the MIT license terms
- Your stack matches Go
- You evaluated both and kala 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 kala
Kala is an open source job scheduler written in Go under the MIT license. It sits in the Infrastructure & Operations / Orchestration & Scheduling category and describes itself as a modern service for scheduling jobs. The project ships as a single binary with no external dependencies, exposes a JSON over HTTP API, includes a web UI, and supports persistent storage through several database drivers.
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Frequently asked questions
Is compose or kala more popular?
compose has 38,175 GitHub stars and kala has 2,156. compose has the larger community by that measure.
Are compose and kala free?
Both are open source. compose is licensed under Apache-2.0 and kala under MIT. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between compose and kala?
compose is written in Go and kala 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 kala?
Choose compose if you want the larger community (38,175 stars) or its Apache-2.0 licence terms. Choose kala if its feature set, stack or MIT licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.