head to head · open source
compose vs tork
compose has 38,175 GitHub stars, 5,817 forks, 111 open issues and last shipped yesterday. tork has 817 stars, 63 forks, 20 open issues and last shipped 2 months ago. compose leads on adoption by 4,573% (38,175 vs 817 stars). compose is written in Go under Apache-2.0; tork is written in Go under MIT. compose has attracted 15% as many forks as stars, tork 8%. compose was the more recently maintained of the two, and both are self-hostable with no licence fee. The two share 3 topic tags (docker, 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 | tork | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 38K | ★ 817 |
| License | Apache-2.0 | MIT |
| Written in | Go | Go |
| Last push | 2026-09-17 | 2026-07-21 |
| Forks | ⑂ 5.8K | ⑂ 63 |
| 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 tork if
- You want the tork feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the MIT license terms
- Your stack matches Go
- You evaluated both and tork 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 tork
Tork is a lightweight, distributed workflow engine written in Go and released under the MIT license. It runs each task of a job as a script inside its own container, so work is defined in YAML rather than as compiled code. The project lives in the Go ecosystem and uses Docker, Podman, or a plain shell as its task runtime, with PostgreSQL as the datastore and a message broker such as RabbitMQ for distributed operation.
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Frequently asked questions
Is compose or tork more popular?
compose has 38,175 GitHub stars and tork has 817. compose has the larger community by that measure.
Are compose and tork free?
Both are open source. compose is licensed under Apache-2.0 and tork under MIT. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between compose and tork?
compose is written in Go and tork 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 tork?
Choose compose if you want the larger community (38,175 stars) or its Apache-2.0 licence terms. Choose tork if its feature set, stack or MIT licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.