head to head · open source
conductor vs cli-agent-orchestrator
conductor has 32,207 GitHub stars, 1,009 forks, 253 open issues and last shipped today. cli-agent-orchestrator has 1,312 stars, 272 forks, 151 open issues and last shipped today. conductor leads on adoption by 2,355% (32,207 vs 1,312 stars). conductor is written in Java under Apache-2.0; cli-agent-orchestrator is written in Python under Apache-2.0. conductor has attracted 3% as many forks as stars, cli-agent-orchestrator 21%. 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 | cli-agent-orchestrator | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 32K | ★ 1.3K |
| License | Apache-2.0 | Apache-2.0 |
| Written in | Java | Python |
| Last push | 2026-09-18 | 2026-09-18 |
| Forks | ⑂ 1.0K | ⑂ 272 |
| 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 cli-agent-orchestrator if
- You want the cli-agent-orchestrator feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the Apache-2.0 license terms
- Your stack matches Python
- You evaluated both and cli-agent-orchestrator 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 cli-agent-orchestrator
CLI Agent Orchestrator (CAO) English 简体中文 CLI Agent Orchestrator (CAO) coordinates multiple AI coding CLIs so a supervisor can delegate work to specialist agents in parallel or sequence. 📚 Documentation — guides, reference, and two interactive courses. What CAO does CAO runs a local cao server , starts provider CLIs in isolated terminal sessions, and gives a supervisor tools for coordinating workers. The agents remain full CLI processes with their native authentication and capabilities. See CODEBASE.md for the runtime architecture and package layout. Prerequisites Install: Python 3.10 or later tmux 3.3 or later …
read the full cli-agent-orchestrator overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is conductor or cli-agent-orchestrator more popular?
conductor has 32,207 GitHub stars and cli-agent-orchestrator has 1,312. conductor has the larger community by that measure.
Are conductor and cli-agent-orchestrator free?
Both are open source. conductor is licensed under Apache-2.0 and cli-agent-orchestrator under Apache-2.0. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between conductor and cli-agent-orchestrator?
conductor is written in Java and cli-agent-orchestrator in Python. 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 cli-agent-orchestrator?
Choose conductor if you want the larger community (32,207 stars) or its Apache-2.0 licence terms. Choose cli-agent-orchestrator if its feature set, stack or Apache-2.0 licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.