head to head · open source
Prefect vs workflow-core
Prefect has 23,857 GitHub stars, 2,528 forks, 858 open issues and last shipped yesterday. workflow-core has 5,926 stars, 1,262 forks, 133 open issues and last shipped 2 days ago. Prefect leads on adoption by 303% (23,857 vs 5,926 stars). Prefect is written in Python under Apache-2.0; workflow-core is written in C# under MIT. Prefect has attracted 11% as many forks as stars, workflow-core 21%. Prefect 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.
← all 8884 open source comparisons
Side by side
| Prefect | workflow-core | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 24K | ★ 5.9K |
| License | Apache-2.0 | MIT |
| Written in | Python | C# |
| Last push | 2026-09-17 | 2026-09-16 |
| Forks | ⑂ 2.5K | ⑂ 1.3K |
| Self-hosting | Yes | Yes |
| Data ownership | Your server | Your server |
pick Prefect if
- You weight community size — 24K 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 workflow-core if
- You want the workflow-core feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the MIT license terms
- Your stack matches C#
- You evaluated both and workflow-core fits your workflow better
About Prefect
Prefect is an open source, Python native workflow orchestration framework that lets data and machine learning teams turn ordinary Python scripts into scheduled, resilient, observable production pipelines.
read the full Prefect overview →
About workflow-core
Workflow Core is a lightweight, embeddable workflow engine targeting .NET Standard, written in C and released under the MIT license. It lives in the .NET ecosystem, distributed as NuGet packages, and is built around the idea of long running processes that contain multiple tasks and must track their state between steps. Rather than running as a separate server, it is a library that is hosted inside an application, and it exposes a fluent C API for defining workflows. Workflows are expressed as a starting step followed by chained steps, and the same class can declare inputs and outputs that move data from one step …
read the full workflow-core overview →
More in Infrastructure & Operations
Related comparisons
More Orchestration & Scheduling projects
Compare either of these against the rest of the Orchestration & Scheduling field.
Frequently asked questions
Is Prefect or workflow-core more popular?
Prefect has 23,857 GitHub stars and workflow-core has 5,926. Prefect has the larger community by that measure.
Are Prefect and workflow-core free?
Both are open source. Prefect is licensed under Apache-2.0 and workflow-core under MIT. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between Prefect and workflow-core?
Prefect is written in Python and workflow-core 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, Prefect or workflow-core?
Choose Prefect if you want the larger community (23,857 stars) or its Apache-2.0 licence terms. Choose workflow-core if its feature set, stack or MIT licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.