head to head · open source
conductor vs quirrel
conductor has 32,207 GitHub stars, 1,010 forks, 253 open issues and last shipped yesterday. quirrel has 927 stars, 68 forks, 39 open issues and last shipped 3 days ago. conductor leads on adoption by 3,374% (32,207 vs 927 stars). conductor is written in Java under Apache-2.0; quirrel is written in TypeScript under MIT. conductor has attracted 3% as many forks as stars, quirrel 7%. 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 | quirrel | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 32K | ★ 927 |
| License | Apache-2.0 | MIT |
| Written in | Java | TypeScript |
| Last push | 2026-09-17 | 2026-09-15 |
| Forks | ⑂ 1.0K | ⑂ 68 |
| 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 quirrel if
- You want the quirrel feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the MIT license terms
- Your stack matches TypeScript
- You evaluated both and quirrel 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 quirrel
Quirrel is an open source task queueing solution built for serverless applications. It is written in TypeScript, distributed under the MIT license, and lives in the JavaScript and TypeScript ecosystem that surrounds serverless platforms such as Next.js deployments. The project describes itself as the task queueing solution for serverless, and its homepage and documentation sit at quirrel.dev and docs.quirrel.dev. The repository has been public for roughly six years, holds 928 stars and 68 forks, and was most recently pushed in September 2026. A notice in the README states that Quirrel joined Netlify, and the orig…
read the full quirrel overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is conductor or quirrel more popular?
conductor has 32,207 GitHub stars and quirrel has 927. conductor has the larger community by that measure.
Are conductor and quirrel free?
Both are open source. conductor is licensed under Apache-2.0 and quirrel under MIT. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between conductor and quirrel?
conductor is written in Java and quirrel in TypeScript. 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 quirrel?
Choose conductor if you want the larger community (32,207 stars) or its Apache-2.0 licence terms. Choose quirrel if its feature set, stack or MIT licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.