head to head · open source
Kestra vs workflow
Kestra has 30,122 GitHub stars, 3,495 forks, 713 open issues and last shipped yesterday. workflow has 2,487 stars, 387 forks, 360 open issues and last shipped yesterday. Kestra leads on adoption by 1,111% (30,122 vs 2,487 stars). Kestra is written in Java under Apache-2.0; workflow is written in TypeScript under Apache-2.0. Kestra has attracted 12% as many forks as stars, workflow 16%. workflow was the more recently maintained of the two, and both are self-hostable with no licence fee. The two share 1 topic tag (ai-agents), 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 | workflow | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 30K | ★ 2.5K |
| License | Apache-2.0 | Apache-2.0 |
| Written in | Java | TypeScript |
| Last push | 2026-11-02 | 2026-11-02 |
| Forks | ⑂ 3.5K | ⑂ 387 |
| 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 workflow if
- You want the workflow feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the Apache-2.0 license terms
- Your stack matches TypeScript
- You evaluated both and workflow 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 workflow
Workflow SDK Workflow SDK makes TypeScript and JavaScript functions durable. It persists workflow progress, retries failed steps, and provides built in observability. Workflows can suspend without using compute while they wait. Quick start Install the SDK in an existing project: Configure the integration for your framework. For example, with Next.js: Then start a workflow from an API route, Server Action, or other server side code: Run your app, then open the local observability UI in another terminal: Choose your framework in the getting started guides. [!NOTE] The workflow package includes its full…
read the full workflow overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is Kestra or workflow more popular?
Kestra has 30,122 GitHub stars and workflow has 2,487. Kestra has the larger community by that measure.
Are Kestra and workflow free?
Both are open source. Kestra is licensed under Apache-2.0 and workflow under Apache-2.0. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between Kestra and workflow?
Kestra is written in Java and workflow in TypeScript. 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 workflow?
Choose Kestra if you want the larger community (30,122 stars) or its Apache-2.0 licence terms. Choose workflow if its feature set, stack or Apache-2.0 licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.