head to head · open source
conductor vs pipecd
conductor has 32,207 GitHub stars, 1,010 forks, 253 open issues and last shipped yesterday. pipecd has 1,355 stars, 364 forks, 235 open issues and last shipped yesterday. conductor leads on adoption by 2,277% (32,207 vs 1,355 stars). conductor is written in Java under Apache-2.0; pipecd is written in Go under Apache-2.0. conductor has attracted 3% as many forks as stars, pipecd 27%. 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 | pipecd | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 32K | ★ 1.4K |
| License | Apache-2.0 | Apache-2.0 |
| Written in | Java | Go |
| Last push | 2026-09-17 | 2026-09-17 |
| Forks | ⑂ 1.0K | ⑂ 364 |
| 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 pipecd if
- You want the pipecd feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the Apache-2.0 license terms
- Your stack matches Go
- You evaluated both and pipecd 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 pipecd
PipeCD is an Apache 2.0 licensed, CNCF Sandbox GitOps continuous delivery platform written in Go that gives teams one consistent deployment and operations experience across Kubernetes, Terraform, GCP Cloud Run, AWS Lambda and AWS ECS.
read the full pipecd overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is conductor or pipecd more popular?
conductor has 32,207 GitHub stars and pipecd has 1,355. conductor has the larger community by that measure.
Are conductor and pipecd free?
Both are open source. conductor is licensed under Apache-2.0 and pipecd under Apache-2.0. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between conductor and pipecd?
conductor is written in Java and pipecd 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, conductor or pipecd?
Choose conductor if you want the larger community (32,207 stars) or its Apache-2.0 licence terms. Choose pipecd if its feature set, stack or Apache-2.0 licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.