head to head · open source
conductor vs flowable-engine
conductor has 32,213 GitHub stars, 1,012 forks, 253 open issues and last shipped yesterday. flowable-engine has 9,542 stars, 2,890 forks, 411 open issues and last shipped 3 days ago. conductor leads on adoption by 238% (32,213 vs 9,542 stars). conductor is written in Java under Apache-2.0; flowable-engine is written in Java under Apache-2.0. conductor has attracted 3% as many forks as stars, flowable-engine 30%. conductor was the more recently maintained of the two, and both are self-hostable with no licence fee. The two share 2 topic tags (java, workflow-engine), 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
| conductor | flowable-engine | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 32K | ★ 9.5K |
| License | Apache-2.0 | Apache-2.0 |
| Written in | Java | Java |
| Last push | 2026-09-19 | 2026-09-17 |
| Forks | ⑂ 1.0K | ⑂ 2.9K |
| Self-hosting | Yes | Yes |
| Data ownership | Your server | Your server |
pick conductor if
- You weight community size — 32K 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 flowable-engine if
- You want the flowable-engine 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 flowable-engine fits your workflow better
About conductor
Conductor is an Apache 2.0 licensed, event driven agentic workflow engine written in Java that provides durable and highly resilient execution for applications and AI agents, aimed at teams running microservices, AI agents, and adaptive workflow graphs that need orchestration they can version, inspect, and recover.
read the full conductor overview →
About flowable-engine
Flowable is an open source workflow and Business Process Management platform written in Java and distributed under the Apache 2.0 license. It bundles three engines in one project: a BPMN process engine, a CMMN case engine, and a DMN rule engine. The project lives in the Java ecosystem, integrates with Spring, and exposes both a Java API and a REST API for orchestrating human or system activities.
read the full flowable-engine overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is conductor or flowable-engine more popular?
conductor has 32,213 GitHub stars and flowable-engine has 9,542. conductor has the larger community by that measure.
Are conductor and flowable-engine free?
Both are open source. conductor is licensed under Apache-2.0 and flowable-engine under Apache-2.0. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between conductor and flowable-engine?
conductor is written in Java and flowable-engine 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, conductor or flowable-engine?
Choose conductor if you want the larger community (32,213 stars) or its Apache-2.0 licence terms. Choose flowable-engine if its feature set, stack or Apache-2.0 licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.