head to head · open source
conductor vs Dagu
conductor has 32,213 GitHub stars, 1,012 forks, 253 open issues and last shipped yesterday. Dagu has 4,036 stars, 339 forks, 67 open issues and last shipped yesterday. conductor leads on adoption by 698% (32,213 vs 4,036 stars). conductor is written in Java under Apache-2.0; Dagu is written in Go under GPL-3.0. conductor has attracted 3% 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. The two share 1 topic tag (durable-execution), 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
| conductor | Dagu | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 32K | ★ 4.0K |
| License | Apache-2.0 | GPL-3.0 |
| Written in | Java | Go |
| Last push | 2026-09-19 | 2026-09-19 |
| Forks | ⑂ 1.0K | ⑂ 339 |
| 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 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 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 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.
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Frequently asked questions
Is conductor or Dagu more popular?
conductor has 32,213 GitHub stars and Dagu has 4,036. conductor has the larger community by that measure.
Are conductor and Dagu free?
Both are open source. conductor is licensed under Apache-2.0 and Dagu under GPL-3.0. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between conductor and Dagu?
conductor is written in Java 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, conductor or Dagu?
Choose conductor if you want the larger community (32,213 stars) or its Apache-2.0 licence terms. Choose Dagu if its feature set, stack or GPL-3.0 licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.