head to head · open source
compose vs nextflow
compose has 38,175 GitHub stars, 5,817 forks, 111 open issues and last shipped yesterday. nextflow has 3,487 stars, 811 forks, 422 open issues and last shipped yesterday. compose leads on adoption by 995% (38,175 vs 3,487 stars). compose is written in Go under Apache-2.0; nextflow is written in Groovy under Apache-2.0. compose has attracted 15% as many forks as stars, nextflow 23%. nextflow was the more recently maintained of the two, and both are self-hostable with no licence fee. The two share 1 topic tag (docker), 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 | nextflow | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 38K | ★ 3.5K |
| License | Apache-2.0 | Apache-2.0 |
| Written in | Go | Groovy |
| Last push | 2026-09-17 | 2026-09-17 |
| Forks | ⑂ 5.8K | ⑂ 811 |
| 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 nextflow if
- You want the nextflow feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the Apache-2.0 license terms
- Your stack matches Groovy
- You evaluated both and nextflow 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 nextflow
Nextflow is an open source workflow system for scalable, portable, and reproducible computational pipelines. It is written in Groovy, released under Apache 2.0, and built around a domain specific language for data driven workflows. The project lives in the infrastructure and operations ecosystem, especially orchestration and scheduling, and its topics include bioinformatics, cloud, Docker, high performance computing, and reproducible research.
read the full nextflow overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is compose or nextflow more popular?
compose has 38,175 GitHub stars and nextflow has 3,487. compose has the larger community by that measure.
Are compose and nextflow free?
Both are open source. compose is licensed under Apache-2.0 and nextflow under Apache-2.0. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between compose and nextflow?
compose is written in Go and nextflow in Groovy. 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 nextflow?
Choose compose if you want the larger community (38,175 stars) or its Apache-2.0 licence terms. Choose nextflow if its feature set, stack or Apache-2.0 licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.