head to head · open source
compose vs nextflow
compose has 38,573 GitHub stars, 5,899 forks, 111 open issues and last shipped yesterday. nextflow has 3,520 stars, 820 forks, 422 open issues and last shipped yesterday. compose leads on adoption by 996% (38,573 vs 3,520 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 | ★ 39K | ★ 3.5K |
| License | Apache-2.0 | Apache-2.0 |
| Written in | Go | Groovy |
| Last push | 2026-11-02 | 2026-11-02 |
| Forks | ⑂ 5.9K | ⑂ 820 |
| 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 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
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 nextflow
"Dataflow variables are spectacularly expressive in concurrent programming" Henri E. Bal , Jennifer G. Steiner , Andrew S. Tanenbaum Nextflow is a workflow system for creating scalable, portable, and reproducible workflows. It is based on the dataflow programming model, which greatly simplifies the writing of parallel and distributed pipelines, allowing you to focus on the flow of data and computation. Nextflow can deploy workflows on a variety of execution platforms, including your local machine, HPC schedulers, AWS Batch, Azure Batch, Google Cloud Batch, and Kubernetes. Additionally, it supports many ways to…
read the full nextflow overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is compose or nextflow more popular?
compose has 38,573 GitHub stars and nextflow has 3,520. 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 (38,573 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.