head to head · open source
Kestra vs erda
Kestra has 28,146 GitHub stars, 2,997 forks, 713 open issues and last shipped yesterday. erda has 2,755 stars, 382 forks, 2 open issues and last shipped 9 days ago. Kestra leads on adoption by 922% (28,146 vs 2,755 stars). Kestra is written in Java under Apache-2.0; erda is written in Go under Apache-2.0. Kestra has attracted 11% as many forks as stars, erda 14%. 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 | erda | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 28K | ★ 2.8K |
| License | Apache-2.0 | Apache-2.0 |
| Written in | Java | Go |
| Last push | 2026-09-17 | 2026-09-09 |
| Forks | ⑂ 3.0K | ⑂ 382 |
| 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 erda if
- You want the erda 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 erda 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 erda
Erda is an open source, enterprise grade cloud native application platform written in Go and licensed under Apache 2.0. It lives in the Kubernetes ecosystem and is organized as a set of repositories that provide a backend, a React user portal, protocol definitions, infrastructure components, pipeline actions, and addons. The project was created by Terminus and aims to support the development of microservice applications through an application centric model.
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Frequently asked questions
Is Kestra or erda more popular?
Kestra has 28,146 GitHub stars and erda has 2,755. Kestra has the larger community by that measure.
Are Kestra and erda free?
Both are open source. Kestra is licensed under Apache-2.0 and erda under Apache-2.0. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between Kestra and erda?
Kestra is written in Java and erda 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 erda?
Choose Kestra if you want the larger community (28,146 stars) or its Apache-2.0 licence terms. Choose erda if its feature set, stack or Apache-2.0 licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.