head to head · open source
jenkins vs Digger
jenkins has 26,719 GitHub stars, 9,819 forks, 3,610 open issues and last shipped yesterday. Digger has 5,061 stars, 611 forks, 482 open issues and last shipped 4 days ago. jenkins leads on adoption by 428% (26,719 vs 5,061 stars). jenkins is written in Java under MIT; Digger is written in Go under MIT. jenkins has attracted 37% as many forks as stars, Digger 12%. jenkins was the more recently maintained of the two, and both are self-hostable with no licence fee. The two share 1 topic tag (hacktoberfest), 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
| jenkins | Digger | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 27K | ★ 5.1K |
| License | MIT | MIT |
| Written in | Java | Go |
| Last push | 2026-11-02 | 2026-10-30 |
| Forks | ⑂ 9.8K | ⑂ 611 |
| Self-hosting | Yes | Yes |
| Data ownership | Your server | Your server |
pick jenkins if
- You weight community size — 27K stars and counting
- You want the MIT license terms
- Your stack matches Java
- You value the larger contributor base for long-term maintenance
pick Digger if
- You want the Digger feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the MIT license terms
- Your stack matches Go
- You evaluated both and Digger fits your workflow better
About jenkins
Table of Contents About What to Use Jenkins for and When to Use It Downloads Getting Started (Development) Source Contributing to Jenkins News and Website Governance Adopters License About In a nutshell, Jenkins is the leading open source automation server. Built with Java, it provides over 2,000 plugins to support automating virtually anything, so that humans can spend their time doing things machines cannot. What to Use Jenkins for and When to Use It Use Jenkins to automate your development workflow, so you can focus on work that matters most. Jenkins is commonly used for: Building projects Running tests to…
read the full jenkins overview →
About Digger
Community Slack Schedule a call Demo Video Docs Heads up: We’ve rebranded! Starting from 7th November 2025, the Digger project is now OpenTaco. The company’s still Digger, same battle tested engine — just a more apt name and a bigger vision. TL;DR Before: Best in class Terraform PR automation (a solid improvement upon Atlantis) After: The only piece of software you need to run Terraform or OpenTofu in production. We'll gradually update all our marketing material to reflect the same! CI/CD for Terraform is tricky. To make life easier, specialized CI systems aka TACOS exist Terraform Cloud, Spacelift, Atlantis…
read the full Digger overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is jenkins or Digger more popular?
jenkins has 26,719 GitHub stars and Digger has 5,061. jenkins has the larger community by that measure.
Are jenkins and Digger free?
Both are open source. jenkins is licensed under MIT and Digger under MIT. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between jenkins and Digger?
jenkins is written in Java and Digger 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, jenkins or Digger?
Choose jenkins if you want the larger community (26,719 stars) or its MIT licence terms. Choose Digger if its feature set, stack or MIT licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.