head to head · open source
conductor vs rancher
conductor has 32,207 GitHub stars, 1,010 forks, 253 open issues and last shipped yesterday. rancher has 25,922 stars, 3,222 forks, 3,371 open issues and last shipped yesterday. conductor leads on adoption by 24% (32,207 vs 25,922 stars). conductor is written in Java under Apache-2.0; rancher is written in Go under Apache-2.0. conductor has attracted 3% as many forks as stars, rancher 12%. rancher 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
| conductor | rancher | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 32K | ★ 26K |
| License | Apache-2.0 | Apache-2.0 |
| Written in | Java | Go |
| Last push | 2026-09-17 | 2026-09-17 |
| Forks | ⑂ 1.0K | ⑂ 3.2K |
| Self-hosting | Yes | Yes |
| Data ownership | Your server | Your server |
pick conductor if
- You weight community size — 32K stars and counting
- You want the Apache-2.0 license terms
- Your stack matches Java
- You value the larger contributor base for long-term maintenance
pick rancher if
- You want the rancher 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 rancher fits your workflow better
About conductor
Conductor is an Apache 2.0 licensed, event driven agentic workflow engine written in Java that provides durable and highly resilient execution for applications and AI agents, aimed at teams running microservices, AI agents, and adaptive workflow graphs that need orchestration they can version, inspect, and recover.
read the full conductor overview →
About rancher
Rancher is an Apache 2.0 licensed, Go based open source container management platform for organizations that deploy containers in production and need to run Kubernetes everywhere while meeting IT requirements and empowering DevOps teams.
read the full rancher overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is conductor or rancher more popular?
conductor has 32,207 GitHub stars and rancher has 25,922. conductor has the larger community by that measure.
Are conductor and rancher free?
Both are open source. conductor is licensed under Apache-2.0 and rancher under Apache-2.0. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between conductor and rancher?
conductor is written in Java and rancher 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, conductor or rancher?
Choose conductor if you want the larger community (32,207 stars) or its Apache-2.0 licence terms. Choose rancher if its feature set, stack or Apache-2.0 licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.