head to head · open source
Kestra vs dapr
Kestra has 29,966 GitHub stars, 3,466 forks, 713 open issues and last shipped 2 days ago. dapr has 26,154 stars, 2,170 forks, 452 open issues and last shipped 3 days ago. Kestra leads on adoption by 15% (29,966 vs 26,154 stars). Kestra is written in Java under Apache-2.0; dapr is written in Go under Apache-2.0. Kestra has attracted 12% as many forks as stars, dapr 8%. Kestra was the more recently maintained of the two, and both are self-hostable with no licence fee. The two share 1 topic tag (ai-agents), 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
| Kestra | dapr | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 30K | ★ 26K |
| License | Apache-2.0 | Apache-2.0 |
| Written in | Java | Go |
| Last push | 2026-10-23 | 2026-10-22 |
| Forks | ⑂ 3.5K | ⑂ 2.2K |
| Self-hosting | Yes | Yes |
| Data ownership | Your server | Your server |
pick Kestra if
- You weight community size — 30K 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 dapr if
- You want the dapr feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the Apache-2.0 license terms
- Your stack matches Go
- You evaluated both and dapr fits your workflow better
About Kestra
Open source orchestration platform for data, AI, and infrastructure workflows Click on the image to learn how to get started with Kestra in 3 minutes. 🌟 What is Kestra? Kestra is an open source, event driven orchestration platform for data, AI, and infrastructure workflows. It unifies scheduled and event driven automation behind a declarative, language agnostic interface. By bringing Infrastructure as Code best practices to your data, process, and microservice pipelines, you can build reliable workflows directly from the UI in just a few lines of YAML, let the built in AI Copilot write them for you, or generate…
read the full Kestra overview →
About dapr
The runtime for durable execution, AI agents, and secure distributed applications [![Go Report][go report badge]][go report url] [![OpenSSF][openssf badge]][openssf url] [![Docker Pulls][docker badge]][docker url] [![Build Status][actions badge]][actions url] [![Test Status][e2e badge]][e2e url] [![Code Coverage][codecov badge]][codecov url] [![License: Apache 2.0][apache badge]][apache url] [![FOSSA Status][fossa badge]][fossa url] [![TODOs][todo badge]][todo url] [![Good First Issues][gfi badge]][gfi url] [![discord][discord badge]][discord url] [![YouTube][youtube badge]][youtube link] [![Bluesky][bluesky…
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Frequently asked questions
Is Kestra or dapr more popular?
Kestra has 29,966 GitHub stars and dapr has 26,154. Kestra has the larger community by that measure.
Are Kestra and dapr free?
Both are open source. Kestra is licensed under Apache-2.0 and dapr under Apache-2.0. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between Kestra and dapr?
Kestra is written in Java and dapr 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, Kestra or dapr?
Choose Kestra if you want the larger community (29,966 stars) or its Apache-2.0 licence terms. Choose dapr if its feature set, stack or Apache-2.0 licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.