head to head · open source
opa vs rundeck
opa has 12,256 GitHub stars, 1,686 forks, 310 open issues and last shipped yesterday. rundeck has 6,304 stars, 987 forks, 81 open issues and last shipped 3 days ago. opa leads on adoption by 94% (12,256 vs 6,304 stars). opa is written in Go under Apache-2.0; rundeck is written in Groovy under Apache-2.0. opa has attracted 14% as many forks as stars, rundeck 16%. opa 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
| opa | rundeck | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 12K | ★ 6.3K |
| License | Apache-2.0 | Apache-2.0 |
| Written in | Go | Groovy |
| Last push | 2026-09-19 | 2026-09-17 |
| Forks | ⑂ 1.7K | ⑂ 987 |
| Self-hosting | Yes | Yes |
| Data ownership | Your server | Your server |
pick opa if
- You weight community size — 12K 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 rundeck if
- You want the rundeck feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the Apache-2.0 license terms
- Your stack matches Groovy
- You evaluated both and rundeck fits your workflow better
About opa
Open Policy Agent (OPA) is an open source, general purpose policy engine that enables unified, context aware policy enforcement across the entire stack. It lives in the cloud native ecosystem as a graduated project in the Cloud Native Computing Foundation landscape, and it is written in Go under the Apache 2.0 license. Policy is expressed declaratively in the Rego language, and the project ships alongside a CLI, an HTTP REST API, a Go SDK, and editor tooling rather than as a single binary alone. The repository has been active for roughly eleven years, with 12,234 stars, 1,679 forks, and a last push dated 15 Septe…
About rundeck
Rundeck is an open source runbook automation service maintained by PagerDuty, distributed under the Apache License 2.0 and published from the rundeck.org homepage. It provides a web console, command line tools, and a WebAPI, and its stated purpose is to enable self service operations by giving specific users access to existing tools, services, and scripts. The repository is 16 years old and lives in the DevOps and operations tooling ecosystem, alongside topics such as ansible, automation, deployment, audit, ops, and devops tools.
read the full rundeck overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is opa or rundeck more popular?
opa has 12,256 GitHub stars and rundeck has 6,304. opa has the larger community by that measure.
Are opa and rundeck free?
Both are open source. opa is licensed under Apache-2.0 and rundeck under Apache-2.0. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between opa and rundeck?
opa is written in Go and rundeck in Groovy. The practical differences are community size, licence terms, language stack and release cadence — all compared in the table above.
Which should I choose, opa or rundeck?
Choose opa if you want the larger community (12,256 stars) or its Apache-2.0 licence terms. Choose rundeck if its feature set, stack or Apache-2.0 licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.