head to head · open source
Kestra vs Slickflow
Kestra has 30,122 GitHub stars, 3,495 forks, 713 open issues and last shipped yesterday. Slickflow has 922 stars, 265 forks, 11 open issues and last shipped 4 months ago. Kestra leads on adoption by 3,167% (30,122 vs 922 stars). Kestra is written in Java under Apache-2.0; Slickflow is written in C# under MIT. Kestra has attracted 12% as many forks as stars, Slickflow 29%. 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 | Slickflow | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 30K | ★ 922 |
| License | Apache-2.0 | MIT |
| Written in | Java | C# |
| Last push | 2026-11-02 | 2026-06-24 |
| Forks | ⑂ 3.5K | ⑂ 265 |
| 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 Slickflow if
- You want the Slickflow feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the MIT license terms
- Your stack matches C#
- You evaluated both and Slickflow 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 Slickflow
Slickflow Current Version: NET8 1. 🤖 AI Powered Workflow Automation SlickFlow: Intelligent Workflow Automation with Large Language Models Slickflow integrates cutting edge Large Language Model (LLM) nodes directly into BPMN workflows, enabling advanced conversational reasoning, RAG (Retrieval Augmented Generation), image understanding and other AI capabilities as first class workflow steps . This transforms traditional workflow systems into dynamic, AI driven orchestration platforms. 1.1 Native LLM Node Integration Add LLM / RAG / Agent nodes into your process diagrams as easily as traditional service tasks…
read the full Slickflow overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is Kestra or Slickflow more popular?
Kestra has 30,122 GitHub stars and Slickflow has 922. Kestra has the larger community by that measure.
Are Kestra and Slickflow free?
Both are open source. Kestra is licensed under Apache-2.0 and Slickflow under MIT. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between Kestra and Slickflow?
Kestra is written in Java and Slickflow 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 Slickflow?
Choose Kestra if you want the larger community (30,122 stars) or its Apache-2.0 licence terms. Choose Slickflow if its feature set, stack or MIT licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.