head to head · open source
Prefect vs workflow-core
Prefect has 24,109 GitHub stars, 2,624 forks, 858 open issues and last shipped yesterday. workflow-core has 5,939 stars, 1,261 forks, 133 open issues and last shipped 4 days ago. Prefect leads on adoption by 306% (24,109 vs 5,939 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.
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Side by side
| Prefect | workflow-core | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 24K | ★ 5.9K |
| License | Apache-2.0 | MIT |
| Written in | Python | C# |
| Last push | 2026-11-02 | 2026-10-30 |
| Forks | ⑂ 2.6K | ⑂ 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
Installation · Quickstart · Build workflows · Deploy workflows · Prefect Cloud Prefect Prefect is a workflow orchestration framework for building data pipelines in Python. It's the simplest way to elevate a script into a production workflow. With Prefect, you can build resilient, dynamic data pipelines that react to the world around them and recover from unexpected changes. With just a few lines of code, data teams can confidently automate any data process with features such as scheduling, caching, retries, and event based automations. Workflow activity is tracked and can be monitored with a self hosted Prefect…
read the full Prefect overview →
About workflow-core
Workflow Core Workflow Core is a light weight embeddable workflow engine targeting .NET Standard. Think: long running processes with multiple tasks that need to track state. It supports pluggable persistence and concurrency providers to allow for multi node clusters. Announcements New related project: Conductor Conductor is a stand alone workflow server as opposed to a library that uses Workflow Core internally. It exposes an API that allows you to store workflow definitions, track running workflows, manage events and define custom steps and scripts for usage in your workflows. Documentation See Tutorial here…
read the full workflow-core overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is Prefect or workflow-core more popular?
Prefect has 24,109 GitHub stars and workflow-core has 5,939. 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 (24,109 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.