head to head · open source
compose vs sidequest
compose has 38,195 GitHub stars, 5,825 forks, 111 open issues and last shipped 2 days ago. sidequest has 1,015 stars, 25 forks, 14 open issues and last shipped 12 days ago. compose leads on adoption by 3,663% (38,195 vs 1,015 stars). compose is written in Go under Apache-2.0; sidequest is written in TypeScript under LGPL-3.0. compose has attracted 15% as many forks as stars, sidequest 2%. compose 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 20902 open source comparisons
Side by side
| compose | sidequest | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 38K | ★ 1.0K |
| License | Apache-2.0 | LGPL-3.0 |
| Written in | Go | TypeScript |
| Last push | 2026-09-18 | 2026-09-08 |
| Forks | ⑂ 5.8K | ⑂ 25 |
| Self-hosting | Yes | Yes |
| Data ownership | Your server | Your server |
pick compose if
- You weight community size — 38K 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 sidequest if
- You want the sidequest feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the LGPL-3.0 license terms
- Your stack matches TypeScript
- You evaluated both and sidequest fits your workflow better
About compose
Docker Compose is an Apache 2.0 licensed Go tool that defines and runs multi container applications on Docker from a single Compose file, aimed at developers and operators who need several containers to start together as one isolated application.
read the full compose overview →
About sidequest
Sidequest is a Redis free background job processor for Node.js that persists jobs in the PostgreSQL, MySQL, SQLite, or MongoDB database an application already runs, aimed at teams that need durable, distributed queue processing without operating Redis.
read the full sidequest 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 compose or sidequest more popular?
compose has 38,195 GitHub stars and sidequest has 1,015. compose has the larger community by that measure.
Are compose and sidequest free?
Both are open source. compose is licensed under Apache-2.0 and sidequest under LGPL-3.0. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between compose and sidequest?
compose is written in Go and sidequest in TypeScript. The practical differences are community size, licence terms, language stack and release cadence — all compared in the table above.
Which should I choose, compose or sidequest?
Choose compose if you want the larger community (38,195 stars) or its Apache-2.0 licence terms. Choose sidequest if its feature set, stack or LGPL-3.0 licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.