head to head · open source
Kestra vs happier
Kestra has 30,122 GitHub stars, 3,495 forks, 713 open issues and last shipped yesterday. happier has 2,117 stars, 211 forks, 160 open issues and last shipped yesterday. Kestra leads on adoption by 1,323% (30,122 vs 2,117 stars). Kestra is written in Java under Apache-2.0; happier is written in TypeScript under MIT. Kestra has attracted 12% as many forks as stars, happier 10%. happier was the more recently maintained of the two, and both are self-hostable with no licence fee. The two share 1 topic tag (ai-agents), 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
| Kestra | happier | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 30K | ★ 2.1K |
| License | Apache-2.0 | MIT |
| Written in | Java | TypeScript |
| Last push | 2026-11-02 | 2026-11-02 |
| Forks | ⑂ 3.5K | ⑂ 211 |
| Self-hosting | Yes | Yes |
| Data ownership | Your server | Your server |
pick Kestra if
- You weight community size — 30K 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 happier if
- You want the happier feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the MIT license terms
- Your stack matches TypeScript
- You evaluated both and happier fits your workflow better
About Kestra
Open source orchestration platform for data, AI, and infrastructure workflows Click on the image to learn how to get started with Kestra in 3 minutes. 🌟 What is Kestra? Kestra is an open source, event driven orchestration platform for data, AI, and infrastructure workflows. It unifies scheduled and event driven automation behind a declarative, language agnostic interface. By bringing Infrastructure as Code best practices to your data, process, and microservice pipelines, you can build reliable workflows directly from the UI in just a few lines of YAML, let the built in AI Copilot write them for you, or generate…
read the full Kestra overview →
About happier
One control room for all your coding agents. The way orchestrating agents should feel. From your phone, desktop and browser. Claude Code, Codex, OpenCode, Pi and more, working together and in parallel on your own machines. Sessions can spawn subagents across agents: e.g. Claude asking Codex for a review, or Codex delegating to Claude subagents. Switch agents mid session. Approve, steer, review and commit from wherever you are. Open source · Self hostable · End to end encrypted Get started · Downloads · Docs · Self host · Discord Latest Happier project update Happier is free and open source. Your agents keep…
read the full happier overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is Kestra or happier more popular?
Kestra has 30,122 GitHub stars and happier has 2,117. Kestra has the larger community by that measure.
Are Kestra and happier free?
Both are open source. Kestra is licensed under Apache-2.0 and happier under MIT. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between Kestra and happier?
Kestra is written in Java and happier in TypeScript. The practical differences are community size, licence terms, language stack and release cadence — all compared in the table above.
Which should I choose, Kestra or happier?
Choose Kestra if you want the larger community (30,122 stars) or its Apache-2.0 licence terms. Choose happier if its feature set, stack or MIT licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.