head to head · open source
dagger vs task
dagger has 16,573 GitHub stars, 946 forks, 156 open issues and last shipped yesterday. task has 16,326 stars, 941 forks, 190 open issues and last shipped yesterday. dagger leads on adoption by 2% (16,573 vs 16,326 stars). dagger is written in Go under Apache-2.0; task is written in Go under MIT. dagger has attracted 6% as many forks as stars, task 6%. dagger was the more recently maintained of the two, and both are self-hostable with no licence fee. The two share 1 topic tag (devops), so they are genuine substitutes rather than adjacent tools.
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
| dagger | task | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 17K | ★ 16K |
| License | Apache-2.0 | MIT |
| Written in | Go | Go |
| Last push | 2026-11-02 | 2026-11-02 |
| Forks | ⑂ 946 | ⑂ 941 |
| Self-hosting | Yes | Yes |
| Data ownership | Your server | Your server |
pick dagger if
- You weight community size — 17K stars and counting
- You want the Apache-2.0 license terms
- Your stack matches Go
- You value the larger contributor base for long-term maintenance
pick task if
- You want the task feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the MIT license terms
- Your stack matches Go
- You evaluated both and task fits your workflow better
About dagger
Dagger: a better way to ship Dagger is a platform for automating software delivery. It can build, test and ship any codebase, reliably and at scale. Dagger runs locally, in your CI server, or directly in the cloud. Why Dagger? Dagger makes your software delivery programmable , local first , repeatable and observable . Programmable . Shell scripts and proprietary YAML are no longer acceptable for automating software delivery. Dagger provides: a complete execution engine and system API; SDKs for 8 languages; an interactive REPL; a rich ecosystem of reusable modules; and more. Local first . Once you automate a task…
read the full dagger overview →
About task
Task: The Modern Task Runner A fast, cross platform build tool inspired by Make, designed for modern workflows. Installation • Getting Started • Docs • Twitter • Bluesky • Mastodon • Discord Gold Sponsors Community Sponsors Package hosting provided by Cloudsmith . Tooling provided by JetBrains .
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Frequently asked questions
Is dagger or task more popular?
dagger has 16,573 GitHub stars and task has 16,326. dagger has the larger community by that measure.
Are dagger and task free?
Both are open source. dagger is licensed under Apache-2.0 and task under MIT. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between dagger and task?
dagger is written in Go and task 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, dagger or task?
Choose dagger if you want the larger community (16,573 stars) or its Apache-2.0 licence terms. Choose task if its feature set, stack or MIT licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.