head to head · open source
conductor vs werf
conductor has 32,207 GitHub stars, 1,010 forks, 253 open issues and last shipped yesterday. werf has 4,721 stars, 239 forks, 30 open issues and last shipped yesterday. conductor leads on adoption by 582% (32,207 vs 4,721 stars). conductor is written in Java under Apache-2.0; werf is written in Go under Apache-2.0. conductor has attracted 3% as many forks as stars, werf 5%. 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 | werf | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 32K | ★ 4.7K |
| License | Apache-2.0 | Apache-2.0 |
| Written in | Java | Go |
| Last push | 2026-09-17 | 2026-09-17 |
| Forks | ⑂ 1.0K | ⑂ 239 |
| 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 werf if
- You want the werf 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 werf 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 werf
werf is a CNCF Sandbox command line tool, written in Go and licensed under Apache 2.0, that implements full cycle CI/CD to Kubernetes for teams that already build container images and deploy with Helm but want one tool to carry an application from build through deploy, release artifacts and container registry cleanup.
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Frequently asked questions
Is conductor or werf more popular?
conductor has 32,207 GitHub stars and werf has 4,721. conductor has the larger community by that measure.
Are conductor and werf free?
Both are open source. conductor is licensed under Apache-2.0 and werf under Apache-2.0. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between conductor and werf?
conductor is written in Java and werf 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 werf?
Choose conductor if you want the larger community (32,207 stars) or its Apache-2.0 licence terms. Choose werf if its feature set, stack or Apache-2.0 licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.