head to head · open source
Kestra vs agola
Kestra has 28,146 GitHub stars, 2,997 forks, 713 open issues and last shipped yesterday. agola has 1,622 stars, 122 forks, 71 open issues and last shipped 12 months ago. Kestra leads on adoption by 1,635% (28,146 vs 1,622 stars). Kestra is written in Java under Apache-2.0; agola is written in Go under Apache-2.0. Kestra has attracted 11% as many forks as stars, agola 8%. Kestra was the more recently maintained of the two, and both are self-hostable with no licence fee. The two share 1 topic tag (devops), 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 | agola | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 28K | ★ 1.6K |
| License | Apache-2.0 | Apache-2.0 |
| Written in | Java | Go |
| Last push | 2026-09-17 | 2025-09-24 |
| Forks | ⑂ 3.0K | ⑂ 122 |
| Self-hosting | Yes | Yes |
| Data ownership | Your server | Your server |
pick Kestra if
- You weight community size — 28K 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 agola if
- You want the agola 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 agola fits your workflow better
About Kestra
Kestra is an open source, event driven orchestration platform for data, AI, and infrastructure workflows. It operates in the Java based ecosystem and is licensed under Apache 2.0. The project provides a unified interface for both scheduled and real time automation, supporting declarative workflow definitions in YAML while also offering visual and AI assisted authoring.
read the full Kestra overview →
About agola
Agola is an open source CI/CD platform written in Go and released under Apache 2.0. It lives in the DevOps ecosystem, where teams need continuous integration, delivery, and deployment pipelines for Git repositories and containerized execution environments.
read the full agola overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is Kestra or agola more popular?
Kestra has 28,146 GitHub stars and agola has 1,622. Kestra has the larger community by that measure.
Are Kestra and agola free?
Both are open source. Kestra is licensed under Apache-2.0 and agola under Apache-2.0. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between Kestra and agola?
Kestra is written in Java and agola 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, Kestra or agola?
Choose Kestra if you want the larger community (28,146 stars) or its Apache-2.0 licence terms. Choose agola if its feature set, stack or Apache-2.0 licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.