head to head · open source
conductor vs Inngest
conductor has 32,213 GitHub stars, 1,012 forks, 253 open issues and last shipped yesterday. Inngest has 5,853 stars, 358 forks, 234 open issues and last shipped yesterday. conductor leads on adoption by 450% (32,213 vs 5,853 stars). conductor is written in Java under Apache-2.0; Inngest is written in Go under a custom or non-standard licence. conductor has attracted 3% as many forks as stars, Inngest 6%. Inngest 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.
← all 20902 open source comparisons
Side by side
| conductor | Inngest | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 32K | ★ 5.9K |
| License | Apache-2.0 | Custom / other |
| Written in | Java | Go |
| Last push | 2026-09-19 | 2026-09-19 |
| Forks | ⑂ 1.0K | ⑂ 358 |
| 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 Inngest if
- You want the Inngest feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the Custom / other license terms
- Your stack matches Go
- You evaluated both and Inngest 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 Inngest
Inngest is an open source workflow orchestration platform that lets developers write durable, event driven step functions in their existing language SDKs and run them on serverless, long running servers, or the edge.
read the full Inngest 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 conductor or Inngest more popular?
conductor has 32,213 GitHub stars and Inngest has 5,853. conductor has the larger community by that measure.
Are conductor and Inngest free?
Both are open source. conductor is licensed under Apache-2.0, and Inngest has no licence declared in this registry. Both are free to self-host.
What is the difference between conductor and Inngest?
conductor is written in Java and Inngest 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, conductor or Inngest?
Choose conductor if you want the larger community (32,213 stars) or its Apache-2.0 licence terms. Choose Inngest if its feature set, stack or Custom / other licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.