head to head · open source
luigi vs salt
luigi has 18,775 GitHub stars, 2,463 forks, 175 open issues and last shipped 2 months ago. salt has 15,661 stars, 5,610 forks, 1,885 open issues and last shipped yesterday. luigi leads on adoption by 20% (18,775 vs 15,661 stars). luigi is written in Python under Apache-2.0; salt is written in Python under Apache-2.0. luigi has attracted 13% as many forks as stars, salt 36%. salt 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
| luigi | salt | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 19K | ★ 16K |
| License | Apache-2.0 | Apache-2.0 |
| Written in | Python | Python |
| Last push | 2026-07-18 | 2026-09-17 |
| Forks | ⑂ 2.5K | ⑂ 5.6K |
| Self-hosting | Yes | Yes |
| Data ownership | Your server | Your server |
pick luigi if
- You weight community size — 19K stars and counting
- You want the Apache-2.0 license terms
- Your stack matches Python
- You value the larger contributor base for long-term maintenance
pick salt if
- You want the salt feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the Apache-2.0 license terms
- Your stack matches Python
- You evaluated both and salt fits your workflow better
About luigi
Luigi is a Python module for building complex pipelines of batch jobs, handling dependency resolution, workflow management, visualization, and failure handling, aimed at data engineers and teams who need to stitch together long running tasks such as Hadoop, Hive, Pig, Spark, or local Python jobs into repeatable workflows.
read the full luigi overview →
About salt
Salt is a Python based, event driven automation framework that deploys, configures and manages complex IT systems at scale, built for system administrators, platform and infrastructure engineers, and DevOps teams responsible for keeping many servers, virtual machines, containers, databases, web servers and network devices in a consistent desired state.
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Frequently asked questions
Is luigi or salt more popular?
luigi has 18,775 GitHub stars and salt has 15,661. luigi has the larger community by that measure.
Are luigi and salt free?
Both are open source. luigi is licensed under Apache-2.0 and salt under Apache-2.0. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between luigi and salt?
luigi is written in Python and salt in Python. The practical differences are community size, licence terms, language stack and release cadence — all compared in the table above.
Which should I choose, luigi or salt?
Choose luigi if you want the larger community (18,775 stars) or its Apache-2.0 licence terms. Choose salt if its feature set, stack or Apache-2.0 licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.