head to head · open source
Archon vs Dagu
Archon has 23,505 GitHub stars, 3,474 forks, 321 open issues and last shipped 2 days ago. Dagu has 4,036 stars, 339 forks, 67 open issues and last shipped yesterday. Archon leads on adoption by 482% (23,505 vs 4,036 stars). Archon is written in TypeScript under MIT; Dagu is written in Go under GPL-3.0. Archon has attracted 15% as many forks as stars, Dagu 8%. Dagu 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.
← all 20902 open source comparisons
Side by side
| Archon | Dagu | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 24K | ★ 4.0K |
| License | MIT | GPL-3.0 |
| Written in | TypeScript | Go |
| Last push | 2026-09-18 | 2026-09-19 |
| Forks | ⑂ 3.5K | ⑂ 339 |
| Self-hosting | Yes | Yes |
| Data ownership | Your server | Your server |
pick Archon if
- You weight community size — 24K stars and counting
- You want the MIT license terms
- Your stack matches TypeScript
- You value the larger contributor base for long-term maintenance
pick Dagu if
- You want the Dagu feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the GPL-3.0 license terms
- Your stack matches Go
- You evaluated both and Dagu fits your workflow better
About Archon
Archon is an open source workflow engine for AI coding agents, written in TypeScript and released under the MIT license. It lives in the AI coding ecosystem, alongside tools such as Claude Code, and is distributed through the Bun runtime and the GitHub CLI. The project describes itself as a harness builder: it lets a developer encode a development process as a YAML workflow and then run that workflow reliably across projects. Workflows are stored in a .archon/workflows/ directory and committed to the repository, so the same definition can be invoked from the CLI, a web UI, Slack, Telegram, or GitHub.…
read the full Archon overview →
About Dagu
Dagu is local first workflow engine. It targets operations and internal automation. It lives in Infrastructure & Operations / Orchestration & Scheduling. It is Go project under GPL 3.0. It provides single binary with built in Web UI. It needs no external database or message broker. It runs on Linux, macOS, Windows. GitHub metadata lists 3982 stars, 332 forks, 0 contributors, 67 open issues, repo age 0 years, last push 2026 09 14.
More in Infrastructure & Operations
Related comparisons
More Orchestration & Scheduling projects
Compare either of these against the rest of the Orchestration & Scheduling field.
Frequently asked questions
Is Archon or Dagu more popular?
Archon has 23,505 GitHub stars and Dagu has 4,036. Archon has the larger community by that measure.
Are Archon and Dagu free?
Both are open source. Archon is licensed under MIT and Dagu under GPL-3.0. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between Archon and Dagu?
Archon is written in TypeScript and Dagu 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, Archon or Dagu?
Choose Archon if you want the larger community (23,505 stars) or its MIT licence terms. Choose Dagu if its feature set, stack or GPL-3.0 licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.