head to head · open source
Kestra vs Bacalhau
Kestra has 28,146 GitHub stars, 2,997 forks, 713 open issues and last shipped yesterday. Bacalhau has 871 stars, 101 forks, 27 open issues and last shipped 5 days ago. Kestra leads on adoption by 3,131% (28,146 vs 871 stars). Kestra is written in Java under Apache-2.0; Bacalhau is written in Go under Apache-2.0. Kestra has attracted 11% as many forks as stars, Bacalhau 12%. Kestra was the more recently maintained of the two, and both are self-hostable with no licence fee. The two share 1 topic tag (data-engineering), 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 | Bacalhau | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 28K | ★ 871 |
| License | Apache-2.0 | Apache-2.0 |
| Written in | Java | Go |
| Last push | 2026-09-17 | 2026-09-13 |
| Forks | ⑂ 3.0K | ⑂ 101 |
| 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 Bacalhau if
- You want the Bacalhau 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 Bacalhau 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 Bacalhau
Bacalhau is an open source, Apache 2.0 licensed distributed compute orchestrator written in Go that brings computation to the data rather than moving data to computation, built for data engineers, data scientists, bioinformatics teams and infrastructure operators who run batch, edge and cross organizational workloads at petabyte scale.
read the full Bacalhau overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is Kestra or Bacalhau more popular?
Kestra has 28,146 GitHub stars and Bacalhau has 871. Kestra has the larger community by that measure.
Are Kestra and Bacalhau free?
Both are open source. Kestra is licensed under Apache-2.0 and Bacalhau under Apache-2.0. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between Kestra and Bacalhau?
Kestra is written in Java and Bacalhau 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 Bacalhau?
Choose Kestra if you want the larger community (28,146 stars) or its Apache-2.0 licence terms. Choose Bacalhau if its feature set, stack or Apache-2.0 licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.