head to head · open source
airflow vs debezium
airflow has 47,301 GitHub stars, 18,202 forks, 1,831 open issues and last shipped yesterday. debezium has 13,281 stars, 3,110 forks, 131 open issues and last shipped yesterday. airflow leads on adoption by 256% (47,301 vs 13,281 stars). airflow is written in Python under Apache-2.0; debezium is written in Java under Apache-2.0. airflow has attracted 38% as many forks as stars, debezium 23%. airflow 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
| airflow | debezium | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 47K | ★ 13K |
| License | Apache-2.0 | Apache-2.0 |
| Written in | Python | Java |
| Last push | 2026-10-28 | 2026-10-28 |
| Forks | ⑂ 18K | ⑂ 3.1K |
| Self-hosting | Yes | Yes |
| Data ownership | Your server | Your server |
pick airflow if
- You weight community size — 47K 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 debezium if
- You want the debezium feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the Apache-2.0 license terms
- Your stack matches Java
- You evaluated both and debezium fits your workflow better
About airflow
Apache Airflow Apache Airflow (or simply Airflow) is a platform to programmatically author, schedule, and monitor workflows. When workflows are defined as code, they become more maintainable, versionable, testable, and collaborative. Use Airflow to author workflows (Dags) that orchestrate tasks. The Airflow scheduler executes your tasks on an array of workers while following the specified dependencies. Rich command line utilities make performing complex surgeries on Dags a snap. The rich user interface makes it easy to visualize pipelines running in production, monitor progress, and troubleshoot issues when…
read the full airflow overview →
About debezium
Copyright Debezium Authors. Licensed under the Apache License, Version 2.0. The Antlr grammars within the debezium ddl parser module are licensed under the MIT License. English Chinese Japanese Korean Debezium Debezium is an open source project that provides a low latency data streaming platform for change data capture (CDC). You set up and configure Debezium to monitor your databases, and then your applications consume events for each row level change made to the database. Only committed changes are visible, so your application doesn't have to worry about transactions or changes that are rolled back. Debezium…
read the full debezium overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is airflow or debezium more popular?
airflow has 47,301 GitHub stars and debezium has 13,281. airflow has the larger community by that measure.
Are airflow and debezium free?
Both are open source. airflow is licensed under Apache-2.0 and debezium under Apache-2.0. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between airflow and debezium?
airflow is written in Python and debezium in Java. The practical differences are community size, licence terms, language stack and release cadence — all compared in the table above.
Which should I choose, airflow or debezium?
Choose airflow if you want the larger community (47,301 stars) or its Apache-2.0 licence terms. Choose debezium if its feature set, stack or Apache-2.0 licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.