head to head · open source
Kestra vs django-rq
Kestra has 30,122 GitHub stars, 3,495 forks, 713 open issues and last shipped yesterday. django-rq has 1,953 stars, 293 forks, 118 open issues and last shipped 22 days ago. Kestra leads on adoption by 1,442% (30,122 vs 1,953 stars). Kestra is written in Java under Apache-2.0; django-rq is written in Python under MIT. Kestra has attracted 12% as many forks as stars, django-rq 15%. Kestra was the more recently maintained of the two, and both are self-hostable with no licence fee.
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 | django-rq | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 30K | ★ 2.0K |
| License | Apache-2.0 | MIT |
| Written in | Java | Python |
| Last push | 2026-11-02 | 2026-10-12 |
| Forks | ⑂ 3.5K | ⑂ 293 |
| Self-hosting | Yes | Yes |
| Data ownership | Your server | Your server |
pick Kestra if
- You weight community size — 30K 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 django-rq if
- You want the django-rq feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the MIT license terms
- Your stack matches Python
- You evaluated both and django-rq fits your workflow better
About Kestra
Open source orchestration platform for data, AI, and infrastructure workflows Click on the image to learn how to get started with Kestra in 3 minutes. 🌟 What is Kestra? Kestra is an open source, event driven orchestration platform for data, AI, and infrastructure workflows. It unifies scheduled and event driven automation behind a declarative, language agnostic interface. By bringing Infrastructure as Code best practices to your data, process, and microservice pipelines, you can build reliable workflows directly from the UI in just a few lines of YAML, let the built in AI Copilot write them for you, or generate…
read the full Kestra overview →
About django-rq
Django RQ Django integration with RQ, a Redis based Python queuing library. Django RQ is a simple app that allows you to configure your queues in Django's settings.py and easily use them in your project. Support Django RQ If you find django rq useful, please consider supporting its development via Tidelift. Requirements Django (4.2+) RQ Installation Install django rq (or download from PyPI): Add django rq to INSTALLED APPS in settings.py : Configure your queues in Django's settings.py : Admin Integration New in Version 4.0 Django RQ automatically integrates with Django's admin interface. Once installed, navigate…
read the full django-rq overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is Kestra or django-rq more popular?
Kestra has 30,122 GitHub stars and django-rq has 1,953. Kestra has the larger community by that measure.
Are Kestra and django-rq free?
Both are open source. Kestra is licensed under Apache-2.0 and django-rq under MIT. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between Kestra and django-rq?
Kestra is written in Java and django-rq 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 django-rq?
Choose Kestra if you want the larger community (30,122 stars) or its Apache-2.0 licence terms. Choose django-rq if its feature set, stack or MIT licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.