head to head · open source
flowable-engine vs dbos-transact-golang
flowable-engine has 9,635 GitHub stars, 2,904 forks, 411 open issues and last shipped 18 days ago. dbos-transact-golang has 865 stars, 80 forks, 10 open issues and last shipped yesterday. flowable-engine leads on adoption by 1,014% (9,635 vs 865 stars). flowable-engine is written in Java under Apache-2.0; dbos-transact-golang is written in Go under MIT. flowable-engine has attracted 30% as many forks as stars, dbos-transact-golang 9%. dbos-transact-golang was the more recently maintained of the two, and both are self-hostable with no licence fee. The two share 2 topic tags (workflow, 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.
← all 20902 open source comparisons
Side by side
| flowable-engine | dbos-transact-golang | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 9.6K | ★ 865 |
| License | Apache-2.0 | MIT |
| Written in | Java | Go |
| Last push | 2026-10-18 | 2026-11-04 |
| Forks | ⑂ 2.9K | ⑂ 80 |
| Self-hosting | Yes | Yes |
| Data ownership | Your server | Your server |
pick flowable-engine if
- You weight community size — 9.6K 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 dbos-transact-golang if
- You want the dbos-transact-golang feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the MIT license terms
- Your stack matches Go
- You evaluated both and dbos-transact-golang fits your workflow better
About flowable-engine
Flowable ======== Homepage: flowable / flowəb(ə)l / a compact and highly efficient workflow and Business Process Management (BPM) platform for developers, system admins and business users. a lightning fast, tried and tested BPMN process engine, CMMN case engine and DMN rule engine written in Java. It is Apache 2.0 licensed open source, with a committed community. can run embedded in a Java application, or as a service on a server, a cluster, and in the cloud. It integrates perfectly with Spring. With a rich Java and REST API, it is the ideal engine for orchestrating human or system activities. Introduction…
read the full flowable-engine overview →
About dbos-transact-golang
DBOS Transact: Lightweight Durable Workflow Orchestration with Postgres Documentation • Examples • Github What is DBOS? DBOS provides lightweight durable workflow orchestration on top of Postgres. Instead of managing your own workflow orchestrator or task queue system, you can use DBOS to add durable workflows and queues to your program in just a few lines of code. When Should I Use DBOS? You should consider using DBOS if your application needs to reliably handle failures . For example, you might be building a payments service that must reliably process transactions even if servers crash mid operation, or a long…
read the full dbos-transact-golang overview →
More in Infrastructure & Operations
Related comparisons
More Orchestration & Scheduling projects
Compare either of these against the rest of the Orchestration & Scheduling field.
Frequently asked questions
Is flowable-engine or dbos-transact-golang more popular?
flowable-engine has 9,635 GitHub stars and dbos-transact-golang has 865. flowable-engine has the larger community by that measure.
Are flowable-engine and dbos-transact-golang free?
Both are open source. flowable-engine is licensed under Apache-2.0 and dbos-transact-golang under MIT. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between flowable-engine and dbos-transact-golang?
flowable-engine is written in Java and dbos-transact-golang 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, flowable-engine or dbos-transact-golang?
Choose flowable-engine if you want the larger community (9,635 stars) or its Apache-2.0 licence terms. Choose dbos-transact-golang if its feature set, stack or MIT licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.