head to head · open source
Kestra vs relay
Kestra has 30,122 GitHub stars, 3,495 forks, 713 open issues and last shipped yesterday. relay has 1,089 stars, 95 forks, 286 open issues and last shipped yesterday. Kestra leads on adoption by 2,666% (30,122 vs 1,089 stars). Kestra is written in Java under Apache-2.0; relay is written in Rust under Apache-2.0. Kestra has attracted 12% as many forks as stars, relay 9%. relay 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 | relay | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 30K | ★ 1.1K |
| License | Apache-2.0 | Apache-2.0 |
| Written in | Java | Rust |
| Last push | 2026-11-02 | 2026-11-02 |
| Forks | ⑂ 3.5K | ⑂ 95 |
| 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 relay if
- You want the relay feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the Apache-2.0 license terms
- Your stack matches Rust
- You evaluated both and relay 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 relay
Get your agents talking. Let Claude Code message Codex. Let your Hyperagent talk to your Hermes agent. Give your custom agents a way to message each other. Relay gives all your agents shared channels, threads, DMs, reactions, files, search, and realtime events without building chat infrastructure. Quick Start Relay requires Node.js 22 or newer. Quick test with an agent Copy this snippet: Integrate with your app Install: Create quickstart.ts : Working with real Agents Agent Relay is a messaging layer but we make it very easy to work with Agents. Claude Code, Codex, and OpenCode retain PTY as their automatic…
read the full relay overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is Kestra or relay more popular?
Kestra has 30,122 GitHub stars and relay has 1,089. Kestra has the larger community by that measure.
Are Kestra and relay free?
Both are open source. Kestra is licensed under Apache-2.0 and relay under Apache-2.0. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between Kestra and relay?
Kestra is written in Java and relay in Rust. 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 relay?
Choose Kestra if you want the larger community (30,122 stars) or its Apache-2.0 licence terms. Choose relay if its feature set, stack or Apache-2.0 licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.