head to head · open source
rancher vs Dagu
rancher has 25,924 GitHub stars, 3,221 forks, 3,371 open issues and last shipped yesterday. Dagu has 4,036 stars, 339 forks, 67 open issues and last shipped yesterday. rancher leads on adoption by 542% (25,924 vs 4,036 stars). rancher is written in Go under Apache-2.0; Dagu is written in Go under GPL-3.0. rancher has attracted 12% 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
| rancher | Dagu | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 26K | ★ 4.0K |
| License | Apache-2.0 | GPL-3.0 |
| Written in | Go | Go |
| Last push | 2026-09-19 | 2026-09-19 |
| Forks | ⑂ 3.2K | ⑂ 339 |
| Self-hosting | Yes | Yes |
| Data ownership | Your server | Your server |
pick rancher if
- You weight community size — 26K 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 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 rancher
Rancher is an Apache 2.0 licensed, Go based open source container management platform for organizations that deploy containers in production and need to run Kubernetes everywhere while meeting IT requirements and empowering DevOps teams.
read the full rancher 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 rancher or Dagu more popular?
rancher has 25,924 GitHub stars and Dagu has 4,036. rancher has the larger community by that measure.
Are rancher and Dagu free?
Both are open source. rancher is licensed under Apache-2.0 and Dagu under GPL-3.0. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between rancher and Dagu?
rancher is written in Go 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, rancher or Dagu?
Choose rancher if you want the larger community (25,924 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.