head to head · open source
conductor vs layer5
conductor has 32,207 GitHub stars, 1,009 forks, 253 open issues and last shipped yesterday. layer5 has 1,124 stars, 1,631 forks, 164 open issues and last shipped yesterday. conductor leads on adoption by 2,765% (32,207 vs 1,124 stars). conductor is written in Java under Apache-2.0; layer5 is written in JavaScript under Apache-2.0. conductor has attracted 3% as many forks as stars, layer5 145%. layer5 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 | layer5 | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 32K | ★ 1.1K |
| License | Apache-2.0 | Apache-2.0 |
| Written in | Java | JavaScript |
| Last push | 2026-09-18 | 2026-09-18 |
| Forks | ⑂ 1.0K | ⑂ 1.6K |
| 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 layer5 if
- You want the layer5 feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the Apache-2.0 license terms
- Your stack matches JavaScript
- You evaluated both and layer5 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 layer5
Layer5 is an open source, Apache 2.0 licensed suite of cloud native infrastructure management projects — Meshery, Kanvas, Nighthawk, the Meshery Catalog, Layer5 Academy, Sistent and related components — aimed at developers, platform operators and teams running Kubernetes and its workloads.
read the full layer5 overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is conductor or layer5 more popular?
conductor has 32,207 GitHub stars and layer5 has 1,124. conductor has the larger community by that measure.
Are conductor and layer5 free?
Both are open source. conductor is licensed under Apache-2.0 and layer5 under Apache-2.0. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between conductor and layer5?
conductor is written in Java and layer5 in JavaScript. 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 layer5?
Choose conductor if you want the larger community (32,207 stars) or its Apache-2.0 licence terms. Choose layer5 if its feature set, stack or Apache-2.0 licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.