head to head · open source
conductor vs nextflow
conductor has 32,401 GitHub stars, 1,051 forks, 253 open issues and last shipped yesterday. nextflow has 3,520 stars, 820 forks, 422 open issues and last shipped yesterday. conductor leads on adoption by 820% (32,401 vs 3,520 stars). conductor is written in Java under Apache-2.0; nextflow is written in Groovy under Apache-2.0. conductor has attracted 3% as many forks as stars, nextflow 23%. nextflow 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 | nextflow | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 32K | ★ 3.5K |
| License | Apache-2.0 | Apache-2.0 |
| Written in | Java | Groovy |
| Last push | 2026-11-02 | 2026-11-02 |
| Forks | ⑂ 1.1K | ⑂ 820 |
| 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 nextflow if
- You want the nextflow feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the Apache-2.0 license terms
- Your stack matches Groovy
- You evaluated both and nextflow fits your workflow better
About conductor
Conductor Durable Execution for Workflows and Agents Build agents that adapt. Run graphs that endure. Conductor is an open source durable execution platform for microservices, AI agents, and adaptive workflow graphs. It turns runtime choices—loops, branching, fan out, tool calls, approvals, retries, and cancellation—into durable, inspectable execution. It originated at Netflix and is actively maintained by Orkes and the community. Get Running in 60 Seconds Prerequisites: Node.js v16+ and Java 21+ must be installed. Open — your server is running with the built in ui next UI. Upgrading from a previous version? The…
read the full conductor overview →
About nextflow
"Dataflow variables are spectacularly expressive in concurrent programming" Henri E. Bal , Jennifer G. Steiner , Andrew S. Tanenbaum Nextflow is a workflow system for creating scalable, portable, and reproducible workflows. It is based on the dataflow programming model, which greatly simplifies the writing of parallel and distributed pipelines, allowing you to focus on the flow of data and computation. Nextflow can deploy workflows on a variety of execution platforms, including your local machine, HPC schedulers, AWS Batch, Azure Batch, Google Cloud Batch, and Kubernetes. Additionally, it supports many ways to…
read the full nextflow overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is conductor or nextflow more popular?
conductor has 32,401 GitHub stars and nextflow has 3,520. conductor has the larger community by that measure.
Are conductor and nextflow free?
Both are open source. conductor is licensed under Apache-2.0 and nextflow under Apache-2.0. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between conductor and nextflow?
conductor is written in Java and nextflow in Groovy. 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 nextflow?
Choose conductor if you want the larger community (32,401 stars) or its Apache-2.0 licence terms. Choose nextflow if its feature set, stack or Apache-2.0 licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.