head to head · open source
Kestra vs Inngest
Kestra has 30,122 GitHub stars, 3,495 forks, 713 open issues and last shipped yesterday. Inngest has 6,013 stars, 386 forks, 234 open issues and last shipped yesterday. Kestra leads on adoption by 401% (30,122 vs 6,013 stars). Kestra is written in Java under Apache-2.0; Inngest is written in Go under a custom or non-standard licence. Kestra has attracted 12% as many forks as stars, Inngest 6%. Inngest 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 | Inngest | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 30K | ★ 6.0K |
| License | Apache-2.0 | Custom / other |
| Written in | Java | Go |
| Last push | 2026-11-02 | 2026-11-02 |
| Forks | ⑂ 3.5K | ⑂ 386 |
| 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 Inngest if
- You want the Inngest feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the Custom / other license terms
- Your stack matches Go
- You evaluated both and Inngest 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 Inngest
Inngest's durable functions replace queues, state management, and scheduling to enable any developer to write reliable step functions faster without touching infrastructure. 1. Write durable functions using any of our language SDKs 2. Run the Inngest Dev Server for a complete local development experience, with production parity. 3. Deploy your functions to your own infrastructure 4. Sync your application's functions with the Inngest Platform or a self hosted Inngest server. 5. Inngest invokes your functions securely via HTTPS whenever triggering events are received. An example durable function Inngest Functions…
read the full Inngest overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is Kestra or Inngest more popular?
Kestra has 30,122 GitHub stars and Inngest has 6,013. Kestra has the larger community by that measure.
Are Kestra and Inngest free?
Both are open source. Kestra is licensed under Apache-2.0, and Inngest has no licence declared in this registry. Both are free to self-host.
What is the difference between Kestra and Inngest?
Kestra is written in Java and Inngest 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 Inngest?
Choose Kestra if you want the larger community (30,122 stars) or its Apache-2.0 licence terms. Choose Inngest if its feature set, stack or Custom / other licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.