head to head · open source
flowable-engine vs hof
flowable-engine has 9,635 GitHub stars, 2,904 forks, 411 open issues and last shipped 18 days ago. hof has 615 stars, 48 forks, 74 open issues and last shipped 6 months ago. flowable-engine leads on adoption by 1,467% (9,635 vs 615 stars). flowable-engine is written in Java under Apache-2.0; hof is written in Go under Apache-2.0. flowable-engine has attracted 30% as many forks as stars, hof 8%. flowable-engine was the more recently maintained of the two, and both are self-hostable with no licence fee. The two share 1 topic tag (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
| flowable-engine | hof | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 9.6K | ★ 615 |
| License | Apache-2.0 | Apache-2.0 |
| Written in | Java | Go |
| Last push | 2026-10-18 | 2026-05-05 |
| Forks | ⑂ 2.9K | ⑂ 48 |
| 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 hof if
- You want the hof feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the Apache-2.0 license terms
- Your stack matches Go
- You evaluated both and hof 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 hof
hof the higher order framework A tool that unifies data models, schemas, code generation, and a task engine. hof is a CLI tool you add to your workflow. Foundation in CUE Deterministic and Agentic code generation Data models that can evolve and be input to code generation Task engine based on cue/flow Agent servers and VS Code extension hof uses CUE to power the DX and implementation. We believe CUE is a great language for specifying schemas, configuration, and generally for writing anything declarative or this is a source of truth. It has good theory and comes from the same people that brought us containers…
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Frequently asked questions
Is flowable-engine or hof more popular?
flowable-engine has 9,635 GitHub stars and hof has 615. flowable-engine has the larger community by that measure.
Are flowable-engine and hof free?
Both are open source. flowable-engine is licensed under Apache-2.0 and hof under Apache-2.0. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between flowable-engine and hof?
flowable-engine is written in Java and hof 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 hof?
Choose flowable-engine if you want the larger community (9,635 stars) or its Apache-2.0 licence terms. Choose hof if its feature set, stack or Apache-2.0 licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.