head to head · open source
kubernetes vs dagger
kubernetes has 127,813 GitHub stars, 44,561 forks, 3,072 open issues and last shipped yesterday. dagger has 16,262 stars, 924 forks, 156 open issues and last shipped yesterday. kubernetes leads on adoption by 686% (127,813 vs 16,262 stars). kubernetes is written in Go under Apache-2.0; dagger is written in Go under Apache-2.0. kubernetes has attracted 35% as many forks as stars, dagger 6%. kubernetes was the more recently maintained of the two, and both are self-hostable with no licence fee. The two share 1 topic tag (containers), 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
| kubernetes | dagger | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 128K | ★ 16K |
| License | Apache-2.0 | Apache-2.0 |
| Written in | Go | Go |
| Last push | 2026-09-18 | 2026-09-18 |
| Forks | ⑂ 45K | ⑂ 924 |
| Self-hosting | Yes | Yes |
| Data ownership | Your server | Your server |
pick kubernetes if
- You weight community size — 128K stars and counting
- You want the Apache-2.0 license terms
- Your stack matches Go
- You value the larger contributor base for long-term maintenance
pick dagger if
- You want the dagger feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the Apache-2.0 license terms
- Your stack matches Go
- You evaluated both and dagger fits your workflow better
About kubernetes
Kubernetes (K8s) is an open source, Apache 2.0 licensed system for managing containerized applications across multiple hosts, hosted by the Cloud Native Computing Foundation and aimed at teams who deploy, maintain and scale container packaged and microservices oriented workloads in production.
read the full kubernetes overview →
About dagger
Dagger is an open source automation engine for software delivery, written in Go and released under the Apache 2.0 license. It builds, tests and ships any codebase, and it runs locally, inside a CI server, or directly in the cloud. The project lives in the cloud infrastructure and CI/CD ecosystem, where it occupies the space normally filled by shell scripts and proprietary pipeline YAML. It has been developed for roughly seven years and carries a substantial community footprint, with more than sixteen thousand stars and over nine hundred forks on GitHub.
read the full dagger overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is kubernetes or dagger more popular?
kubernetes has 127,813 GitHub stars and dagger has 16,262. kubernetes has the larger community by that measure.
Are kubernetes and dagger free?
Both are open source. kubernetes is licensed under Apache-2.0 and dagger under Apache-2.0. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between kubernetes and dagger?
kubernetes is written in Go and dagger in Go. The practical differences are community size, licence terms, language stack and release cadence — all compared in the table above.
Which should I choose, kubernetes or dagger?
Choose kubernetes if you want the larger community (127,813 stars) or its Apache-2.0 licence terms. Choose dagger if its feature set, stack or Apache-2.0 licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.