head to head · open source
conductor vs bolt
conductor has 32,207 GitHub stars, 1,009 forks, 253 open issues and last shipped yesterday. bolt has 558 stars, 224 forks, 101 open issues and last shipped 8 days ago. conductor leads on adoption by 5,672% (32,207 vs 558 stars). conductor is written in Java under Apache-2.0; bolt is written in Ruby under Apache-2.0. conductor has attracted 3% as many forks as stars, bolt 40%. conductor was the more recently maintained of the two, and both are self-hostable with no licence fee.
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
| conductor | bolt | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 32K | ★ 558 |
| License | Apache-2.0 | Apache-2.0 |
| Written in | Java | Ruby |
| Last push | 2026-09-18 | 2026-09-11 |
| Forks | ⑂ 1.0K | ⑂ 224 |
| Self-hosting | Yes | Yes |
| Data ownership | Your server | Your server |
pick conductor if
- You weight community size — 32K stars and counting
- You want the Apache-2.0 license terms
- Your stack matches Java
- You value the larger contributor base for long-term maintenance
pick bolt if
- You want the bolt feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the Apache-2.0 license terms
- Your stack matches Ruby
- You evaluated both and bolt fits your workflow better
About conductor
Conductor is an Apache 2.0 licensed, event driven agentic workflow engine written in Java that provides durable and highly resilient execution for applications and AI agents, aimed at teams running microservices, AI agents, and adaptive workflow graphs that need orchestration they can version, inspect, and recover.
read the full conductor overview →
About bolt
Bolt is an open source, agentless orchestration tool that automates the manual work of maintaining infrastructure on demand or as part of a larger orchestration workflow, and it is built for infrastructure and operations engineers who manage Linux, Windows, and macOS targets.
More in Infrastructure & Operations
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Frequently asked questions
Is conductor or bolt more popular?
conductor has 32,207 GitHub stars and bolt has 558. conductor has the larger community by that measure.
Are conductor and bolt free?
Both are open source. conductor is licensed under Apache-2.0 and bolt under Apache-2.0. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between conductor and bolt?
conductor is written in Java and bolt in Ruby. The practical differences are community size, licence terms, language stack and release cadence — all compared in the table above.
Which should I choose, conductor or bolt?
Choose conductor if you want the larger community (32,207 stars) or its Apache-2.0 licence terms. Choose bolt if its feature set, stack or Apache-2.0 licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.