head to head · open source
Kestra vs ergo
Kestra has 28,146 GitHub stars, 2,997 forks, 713 open issues and last shipped yesterday. ergo has 4,660 stars, 191 forks, 0 open issues and last shipped 11 days ago. Kestra leads on adoption by 504% (28,146 vs 4,660 stars). Kestra is written in Java under Apache-2.0; ergo is written in Go under MIT. Kestra has attracted 11% as many forks as stars, ergo 4%. 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 | ergo | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 28K | ★ 4.7K |
| License | Apache-2.0 | MIT |
| Written in | Java | Go |
| Last push | 2026-09-17 | 2026-09-07 |
| Forks | ⑂ 3.0K | ⑂ 191 |
| 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 ergo if
- You want the ergo feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the MIT license terms
- Your stack matches Go
- You evaluated both and ergo 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 ergo
Ergo is an actor based framework for Go that brings network transparency to event driven architecture, drawing direct inspiration from Erlang/OTP. It lives in the Go ecosystem and is distributed as a pure Go library with zero external dependencies. The framework models every unit of work as an isolated process that communicates only through messages, so shared state, mutexes, and race conditions are eliminated by design rather than managed by convention.
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Frequently asked questions
Is Kestra or ergo more popular?
Kestra has 28,146 GitHub stars and ergo has 4,660. Kestra has the larger community by that measure.
Are Kestra and ergo free?
Both are open source. Kestra is licensed under Apache-2.0 and ergo under MIT. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between Kestra and ergo?
Kestra is written in Java and ergo 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 ergo?
Choose Kestra if you want the larger community (28,146 stars) or its Apache-2.0 licence terms. Choose ergo if its feature set, stack or MIT licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.