head to head · open source
Kestra vs Mage
Kestra has 30,122 GitHub stars, 3,495 forks, 713 open issues and last shipped yesterday. Mage has 8,840 stars, 994 forks, 624 open issues and last shipped 11 days ago. Kestra leads on adoption by 241% (30,122 vs 8,840 stars). Kestra is written in Java under Apache-2.0; Mage is written in Python under Apache-2.0. Kestra has attracted 12% as many forks as stars, Mage 11%. Kestra was the more recently maintained of the two, and both are self-hostable with no licence fee. The two share 2 topic tags (data-engineering, etl), 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 | Mage | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 30K | ★ 8.8K |
| License | Apache-2.0 | Apache-2.0 |
| Written in | Java | Python |
| Last push | 2026-11-02 | 2026-10-23 |
| Forks | ⑂ 3.5K | ⑂ 994 |
| 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 Mage if
- You want the Mage feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the Apache-2.0 license terms
- Your stack matches Python
- You evaluated both and Mage 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 Mage
Mage OSS Build modern data pipelines locally — fast, visual, and production ready. Mage OSS is a self hosted development environment designed to help teams create production grade data pipelines with confidence. Ideal for automating ETL tasks, architecting data flow, or orchestrating transformations — all in a fast, notebook style interface powered by modular code. When it’s time to scale, Mage Pro — our core platform — unlocks enterprise orchestration, collaboration, and AI powered workflows. What you can do with Mage OSS Build pipelines locally with Python, SQL, or R in a modular notebook style UI Run jobs…
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Frequently asked questions
Is Kestra or Mage more popular?
Kestra has 30,122 GitHub stars and Mage has 8,840. Kestra has the larger community by that measure.
Are Kestra and Mage free?
Both are open source. Kestra is licensed under Apache-2.0 and Mage under Apache-2.0. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between Kestra and Mage?
Kestra is written in Java and Mage 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 Mage?
Choose Kestra if you want the larger community (30,122 stars) or its Apache-2.0 licence terms. Choose Mage if its feature set, stack or Apache-2.0 licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.