head to head · open source
Prefect vs dtm
Prefect has 23,882 GitHub stars, 2,527 forks, 858 open issues and last shipped today. dtm has 10,919 stars, 997 forks, 87 open issues and last shipped 9 months ago. Prefect leads on adoption by 119% (23,882 vs 10,919 stars). Prefect is written in Python under Apache-2.0; dtm is written in Go under BSD-3-Clause. Prefect has attracted 11% as many forks as stars, dtm 9%. Prefect 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
| Prefect | dtm | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 24K | ★ 11K |
| License | Apache-2.0 | BSD-3-Clause |
| Written in | Python | Go |
| Last push | 2026-09-20 | 2026-01-03 |
| Forks | ⑂ 2.5K | ⑂ 997 |
| Self-hosting | Yes | Yes |
| Data ownership | Your server | Your server |
pick Prefect if
- You weight community size — 24K 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 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 Prefect
Prefect is an open source, Python native workflow orchestration framework that lets data and machine learning teams turn ordinary Python scripts into scheduled, resilient, observable production pipelines.
read the full Prefect 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 Prefect or dtm more popular?
Prefect has 23,882 GitHub stars and dtm has 10,919. Prefect has the larger community by that measure.
Are Prefect and dtm free?
Both are open source. Prefect is licensed under Apache-2.0 and dtm under BSD-3-Clause. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between Prefect and dtm?
Prefect is written in Python 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, Prefect or dtm?
Choose Prefect if you want the larger community (23,882 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.