head to head · open source
Kestra vs nuke
Kestra has 30,122 GitHub stars, 3,495 forks, 713 open issues and last shipped yesterday. nuke has 3,751 stars, 455 forks, 121 open issues and last shipped 11 months ago. Kestra leads on adoption by 703% (30,122 vs 3,751 stars). Kestra is written in Java under Apache-2.0; nuke is written in C# under MIT. Kestra has attracted 12% as many forks as stars, nuke 12%. 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 | nuke | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 30K | ★ 3.8K |
| License | Apache-2.0 | MIT |
| Written in | Java | C# |
| Last push | 2026-11-02 | 2025-12-02 |
| Forks | ⑂ 3.5K | ⑂ 455 |
| 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 nuke if
- You want the nuke feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the MIT license terms
- Your stack matches C#
- You evaluated both and nuke 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 nuke
The AKEless Build System for C /.NET Table of Contents Elevator Pitch Example Build Status Technology Sponsors Elevator Pitch Solid and scalable CI/CD pipelines are an essential pillar for being competitive and creating a great product. But why are most of us a little afraid of touching YAML files and don't even dare to look at build scripts? Much of this is because C developers are spoiled with a great language and smart IDEs, and they don't like missing their buddy for code completion, ease of debugging, refactorings, and code formatting. NUKE brings your build automation to an even level with every other .NET…
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Frequently asked questions
Is Kestra or nuke more popular?
Kestra has 30,122 GitHub stars and nuke has 3,751. Kestra has the larger community by that measure.
Are Kestra and nuke free?
Both are open source. Kestra is licensed under Apache-2.0 and nuke under MIT. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between Kestra and nuke?
Kestra is written in Java and nuke in C#. 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 nuke?
Choose Kestra if you want the larger community (30,122 stars) or its Apache-2.0 licence terms. Choose nuke if its feature set, stack or MIT licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.