head to head · open source
compose vs service-fabric
compose has 38,573 GitHub stars, 5,899 forks, 111 open issues and last shipped yesterday. service-fabric has 3,072 stars, 401 forks, 847 open issues and last shipped yesterday. compose leads on adoption by 1,156% (38,573 vs 3,072 stars). compose is written in Go under Apache-2.0; service-fabric is written in various languages under MIT. compose has attracted 15% as many forks as stars, service-fabric 13%. service-fabric was the more recently maintained of the two, and both are self-hostable with no licence fee. The two share 1 topic tag (orchestration), 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 | service-fabric | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 39K | ★ 3.1K |
| License | Apache-2.0 | MIT |
| Written in | Go | — |
| Last push | 2026-11-02 | 2026-11-02 |
| Forks | ⑂ 5.9K | ⑂ 401 |
| 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 service-fabric if
- You want the service-fabric feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the MIT license terms
- You evaluated both and service-fabric 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 service-fabric
Service Fabric Service Fabric is a distributed systems platform for packaging, deploying, and managing stateless and stateful distributed applications and containers at large scale. Service Fabric runs on Windows and Linux, on any cloud, any datacenter, across geographic regions, or on your laptop.Service Fabric represents the next generation platform for building and managing these enterprise class, tier 1, cloud scale applications running in containers. Architecture and Subsystem Explorer Learn about Service Fabric's Core Subsystems, mapped to this repo's folder structure. Service Fabric release schedule Here…
read the full service-fabric overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is compose or service-fabric more popular?
compose has 38,573 GitHub stars and service-fabric has 3,072. compose has the larger community by that measure.
Are compose and service-fabric free?
Both are open source. compose is licensed under Apache-2.0 and service-fabric under MIT. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between compose and service-fabric?
compose is written in Go and service-fabric in various languages. 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 service-fabric?
Choose compose if you want the larger community (38,573 stars) or its Apache-2.0 licence terms. Choose service-fabric if its feature set, stack or MIT licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.