head to head · open source
airflow vs steampipe
airflow has 47,301 GitHub stars, 18,202 forks, 1,831 open issues and last shipped yesterday. steampipe has 7,993 stars, 345 forks, 17 open issues and last shipped yesterday. airflow leads on adoption by 492% (47,301 vs 7,993 stars). airflow is written in Python under Apache-2.0; steampipe is written in Go under AGPL-3.0. airflow has attracted 38% as many forks as stars, steampipe 4%. airflow was the more recently maintained of the two, and both are self-hostable with no licence fee. The two share 1 topic tag (etl), so they are genuine substitutes rather than adjacent tools.
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
| airflow | steampipe | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 47K | ★ 8.0K |
| License | Apache-2.0 | AGPL-3.0 |
| Written in | Python | Go |
| Last push | 2026-10-28 | 2026-10-28 |
| Forks | ⑂ 18K | ⑂ 345 |
| Self-hosting | Yes | Yes |
| Data ownership | Your server | Your server |
pick airflow if
- You weight community size — 47K 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 steampipe if
- You want the steampipe feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the AGPL-3.0 license terms
- Your stack matches Go
- You evaluated both and steampipe fits your workflow better
About airflow
Apache Airflow Apache Airflow (or simply Airflow) is a platform to programmatically author, schedule, and monitor workflows. When workflows are defined as code, they become more maintainable, versionable, testable, and collaborative. Use Airflow to author workflows (Dags) that orchestrate tasks. The Airflow scheduler executes your tasks on an array of workers while following the specified dependencies. Rich command line utilities make performing complex surgeries on Dags a snap. The rich user interface makes it easy to visualize pipelines running in production, monitor progress, and troubleshoot issues when…
read the full airflow overview →
About steampipe
select from cloud; Steampipe is the zero ETL way to query APIs and services. Use it to expose data sources to SQL. SQL . It's been the data access standard for decades. Live data . Query APIs in real time. Speed . Query APIs faster than you ever thought possible. Concurrency . Query many data sources in parallel. Single binary . Use it locally, deploy it in CI/CD pipelines. Demo time! Documentation See the documentation for: Running queries Managing Steampipe CLI commands Integrations Developing plugins Install Steampipe Install Steampipe from the downloads page: Install a plugin for your favorite service (e.g…
read the full steampipe overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is airflow or steampipe more popular?
airflow has 47,301 GitHub stars and steampipe has 7,993. airflow has the larger community by that measure.
Are airflow and steampipe free?
Both are open source. airflow is licensed under Apache-2.0 and steampipe under AGPL-3.0. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between airflow and steampipe?
airflow is written in Python and steampipe 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, airflow or steampipe?
Choose airflow if you want the larger community (47,301 stars) or its Apache-2.0 licence terms. Choose steampipe if its feature set, stack or AGPL-3.0 licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.