head to head · open source
airflow vs flink-cdc
airflow has 47,301 GitHub stars, 18,202 forks, 1,831 open issues and last shipped yesterday. flink-cdc has 6,489 stars, 2,204 forks, 119 open issues and last shipped yesterday. airflow leads on adoption by 629% (47,301 vs 6,489 stars). airflow is written in Python under Apache-2.0; flink-cdc is written in Java under Apache-2.0. airflow has attracted 38% as many forks as stars, flink-cdc 34%. airflow was the more recently maintained of the two, and both are self-hostable with no licence fee. The two share 3 topic tags (data-integration, elt, etl), 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
| airflow | flink-cdc | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 47K | ★ 6.5K |
| License | Apache-2.0 | Apache-2.0 |
| Written in | Python | Java |
| Last push | 2026-10-28 | 2026-10-28 |
| Forks | ⑂ 18K | ⑂ 2.2K |
| 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 flink-cdc if
- You want the flink-cdc 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 flink-cdc 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 flink-cdc
Flink CDC is a distributed data integration tool for real time data and batch data, built on top of Apache Flink. It prioritizes efficient end to end data integration and offers enhanced functionalities such as full database synchronization, sharding table synchronization, schema evolution and data transformation. API Layers Flink CDC provides three API layers for different usage scenarios: 1. YAML API (Pipeline API) The YAML API provides a declarative, zero code approach to define data pipelines. Users describe the source, sink, routing, transformation, and schema evolution rules in a YAML file and submit it…
read the full flink-cdc overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is airflow or flink-cdc more popular?
airflow has 47,301 GitHub stars and flink-cdc has 6,489. airflow has the larger community by that measure.
Are airflow and flink-cdc free?
Both are open source. airflow is licensed under Apache-2.0 and flink-cdc under Apache-2.0. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between airflow and flink-cdc?
airflow is written in Python and flink-cdc 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 flink-cdc?
Choose airflow if you want the larger community (47,301 stars) or its Apache-2.0 licence terms. Choose flink-cdc if its feature set, stack or Apache-2.0 licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.