head to head · open source
dagster vs server
dagster has 16,183 GitHub stars, 2,296 forks, 2,589 open issues and last shipped 2 days ago. server has 8,250 stars, 2,105 forks, 495 open issues and last shipped yesterday. dagster leads on adoption by 96% (16,183 vs 8,250 stars). dagster is written in Python under Apache-2.0; server is written in C++ under GPL-2.0. dagster has attracted 14% as many forks as stars, server 26%. server 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
| dagster | server | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 16K | ★ 8.3K |
| License | Apache-2.0 | GPL-2.0 |
| Written in | Python | C++ |
| Last push | 2026-09-18 | 2026-09-19 |
| Forks | ⑂ 2.3K | ⑂ 2.1K |
| Self-hosting | Yes | Yes |
| Data ownership | Your server | Your server |
pick dagster if
- You weight community size — 16K stars and counting
- You want the Apache-2.0 license terms
- Your stack matches Python
- You value the larger contributor base for long-term maintenance
pick server if
- You want the server feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the GPL-2.0 license terms
- Your stack matches C++
- You evaluated both and server fits your workflow better
About dagster
Dagster is a cloud native data pipeline orchestrator written in Python and released under the Apache 2.0 licence, built for data engineers, data scientists, and machine learning teams who declare the tables, data sets, models, and reports their pipelines should produce and need those assets tested, observable, and kept up to date from local development through production.
read the full dagster overview →
About server
MariaDB Server is a community developed, GPL 2.0 relational database server forked from MySQL by the original MySQL developers, aimed at teams that want MySQL compatibility with a sanely licensed, independently governed SQL server.
read the full server overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is dagster or server more popular?
dagster has 16,183 GitHub stars and server has 8,250. dagster has the larger community by that measure.
Are dagster and server free?
Both are open source. dagster is licensed under Apache-2.0 and server under GPL-2.0. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between dagster and server?
dagster is written in Python and server in C++. The practical differences are community size, licence terms, language stack and release cadence — all compared in the table above.
Which should I choose, dagster or server?
Choose dagster if you want the larger community (16,183 stars) or its Apache-2.0 licence terms. Choose server if its feature set, stack or GPL-2.0 licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.