head to head · open source
Kestra vs dagster
Kestra has 28,148 GitHub stars, 2,999 forks, 713 open issues and last shipped yesterday. dagster has 16,168 stars, 2,294 forks, 2,589 open issues and last shipped today. Kestra leads on adoption by 74% (28,148 vs 16,168 stars). Kestra is written in Java under Apache-2.0; dagster is written in Python under Apache-2.0. Kestra has attracted 11% as many forks as stars, dagster 14%. dagster was the more recently maintained of the two, and both are self-hostable with no licence fee. The two share 3 topic tags (data-engineering, data-orchestrator, etl), 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 | dagster | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 28K | ★ 16K |
| License | Apache-2.0 | Apache-2.0 |
| Written in | Java | Python |
| Last push | 2026-09-17 | 2026-09-18 |
| Forks | ⑂ 3.0K | ⑂ 2.3K |
| 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 dagster if
- You want the dagster feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the Apache-2.0 license terms
- Your stack matches Python
- You evaluated both and dagster 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 dagster
Dagster is a cloud native data pipeline orchestrator written in Python and released under the Apache 2.0 licence, built for data engineers, data scientists, and machine learning teams who declare the tables, data sets, models, and reports their pipelines should produce and need those assets tested, observable, and kept up to date from local development through production.
read the full dagster overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is Kestra or dagster more popular?
Kestra has 28,148 GitHub stars and dagster has 16,168. Kestra has the larger community by that measure.
Are Kestra and dagster free?
Both are open source. Kestra is licensed under Apache-2.0 and dagster under Apache-2.0. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between Kestra and dagster?
Kestra is written in Java and dagster in Python. 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 dagster?
Choose Kestra if you want the larger community (28,148 stars) or its Apache-2.0 licence terms. Choose dagster if its feature set, stack or Apache-2.0 licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.