head to head · open source
compose vs dtm
compose has 38,195 GitHub stars, 5,825 forks, 111 open issues and last shipped 2 days ago. dtm has 10,919 stars, 997 forks, 87 open issues and last shipped 9 months ago. compose leads on adoption by 250% (38,195 vs 10,919 stars). compose is written in Go under Apache-2.0; dtm is written in Go under BSD-3-Clause. compose has attracted 15% as many forks as stars, dtm 9%. compose was the more recently maintained of the two, and both are self-hostable with no licence fee. The two share 2 topic tags (go, golang), 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
| compose | dtm | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 38K | ★ 11K |
| License | Apache-2.0 | BSD-3-Clause |
| Written in | Go | Go |
| Last push | 2026-09-18 | 2026-01-03 |
| Forks | ⑂ 5.8K | ⑂ 997 |
| Self-hosting | Yes | Yes |
| Data ownership | Your server | Your server |
pick compose if
- You weight community size — 38K 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 dtm if
- You want the dtm feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the BSD-3-Clause license terms
- Your stack matches Go
- You evaluated both and dtm fits your workflow better
About compose
Docker Compose is an Apache 2.0 licensed Go tool that defines and runs multi container applications on Docker from a single Compose file, aimed at developers and operators who need several containers to start together as one isolated application.
read the full compose overview →
About dtm
DTM is a distributed transaction framework that provides cross service eventual data consistency for microservices, with saga, TCC, XA, 2 phase message, outbox, and workflow patterns plus SDKs for Go, Java, PHP, C , Python, and Node.js.
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Frequently asked questions
Is compose or dtm more popular?
compose has 38,195 GitHub stars and dtm has 10,919. compose has the larger community by that measure.
Are compose and dtm free?
Both are open source. compose is licensed under Apache-2.0 and dtm under BSD-3-Clause. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between compose and dtm?
compose is written in Go and dtm 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, compose or dtm?
Choose compose if you want the larger community (38,195 stars) or its Apache-2.0 licence terms. Choose dtm if its feature set, stack or BSD-3-Clause licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.