head to head · open source
Kestra vs Hatchet
Kestra has 30,122 GitHub stars, 3,495 forks, 713 open issues and last shipped yesterday. Hatchet has 8,214 stars, 528 forks, 135 open issues and last shipped yesterday. Kestra leads on adoption by 267% (30,122 vs 8,214 stars). Kestra is written in Java under Apache-2.0; Hatchet is written in Go under MIT. Kestra has attracted 12% as many forks as stars, Hatchet 6%. Hatchet 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 | Hatchet | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 30K | ★ 8.2K |
| License | Apache-2.0 | MIT |
| Written in | Java | Go |
| Last push | 2026-11-02 | 2026-11-02 |
| Forks | ⑂ 3.5K | ⑂ 528 |
| 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 Hatchet if
- You want the Hatchet feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the MIT license terms
- Your stack matches Go
- You evaluated both and Hatchet 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 Hatchet
An orchestration engine for background tasks, AI agents, and durable workflows Hatchet Cloud · Documentation · Website · Issues What is Hatchet? Hatchet is a platform for orchestrating background tasks, AI agents, and durable workflows at scale. It supports applications written in Python, TypeScript, Go and Ruby, and can be used as a service through Hatchet Cloud or self hosting. Hatchet provides a full platform for queuing, automatic retries, durability, real time monitoring, alerting, and logging. Get started quickly The fastest way to get started with Hatchet is signing up for Hatchet Cloud to try it out! We…
read the full Hatchet overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is Kestra or Hatchet more popular?
Kestra has 30,122 GitHub stars and Hatchet has 8,214. Kestra has the larger community by that measure.
Are Kestra and Hatchet free?
Both are open source. Kestra is licensed under Apache-2.0 and Hatchet under MIT. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between Kestra and Hatchet?
Kestra is written in Java and Hatchet 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 Hatchet?
Choose Kestra if you want the larger community (30,122 stars) or its Apache-2.0 licence terms. Choose Hatchet if its feature set, stack or MIT licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.