head to head · open source
compose vs kala
compose has 38,573 GitHub stars, 5,899 forks, 111 open issues and last shipped yesterday. kala has 2,155 stars, 191 forks, 15 open issues and last shipped 11 months ago. compose leads on adoption by 1,690% (38,573 vs 2,155 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.
← all 20902 open source comparisons
Side by side
| compose | kala | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 39K | ★ 2.2K |
| License | Apache-2.0 | MIT |
| Written in | Go | Go |
| Last push | 2026-11-02 | 2025-12-05 |
| Forks | ⑂ 5.9K | ⑂ 191 |
| Self-hosting | Yes | Yes |
| Data ownership | Your server | Your server |
pick compose if
- You weight community size — 39K 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
Table of Contents Docker Compose Where to get Docker Compose + Windows and macOS + Linux Quick Start Contributing Legacy Docker Compose Docker Compose is a tool for running multi container applications on Docker defined using the Compose file format. A Compose file is used to define how one or more containers that make up your application are configured. Once you have a Compose file, you can create and start your application with a single command: docker compose up . Note : About Docker Swarm Docker Swarm used to rely on the legacy compose file format but did not adopt the compose specification so is missing…
read the full compose overview →
About kala
Kala Kala is a simplistic, modern, and performant job scheduler written in Go. Features: Single binary No dependencies JSON over HTTP API Job Stats Configurable Retries Scheduling with ISO 8601 Date and Interval notation Dependent Jobs Persistent with several database drivers Web UI Note that it is not battle tested. Use at your own risk. Kala was inspired by the desire for a simpler Chronos (developed by Airbnb). Kala is Chronos for the rest of us. If you need fault tolerance, distributed features, massive scale, then I recommend checking out Chronos. This is designed to be the Chronos for start ups. Installing…
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 kala more popular?
compose has 38,573 GitHub stars and kala has 2,155. 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 (38,573 stars) or its Apache-2.0 licence terms. Choose kala if its feature set, stack or MIT licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.