head to head · open source
Temporal vs dolphinscheduler
Temporal has 23,133 GitHub stars, 1,905 forks, 956 open issues and last shipped yesterday. dolphinscheduler has 14,482 stars, 5,092 forks, 128 open issues and last shipped yesterday. Temporal leads on adoption by 60% (23,133 vs 14,482 stars). Temporal is written in Go under MIT; dolphinscheduler is written in Java under Apache-2.0. Temporal has attracted 8% as many forks as stars, dolphinscheduler 35%. Temporal 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
| Temporal | dolphinscheduler | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 23K | ★ 14K |
| License | MIT | Apache-2.0 |
| Written in | Go | Java |
| Last push | 2026-09-17 | 2026-09-17 |
| Forks | ⑂ 1.9K | ⑂ 5.1K |
| Self-hosting | Yes | Yes |
| Data ownership | Your server | Your server |
pick Temporal if
- You weight community size — 23K stars and counting
- You want the MIT license terms
- Your stack matches Go
- You value the larger contributor base for long-term maintenance
pick dolphinscheduler if
- You want the dolphinscheduler feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the Apache-2.0 license terms
- Your stack matches Java
- You evaluated both and dolphinscheduler fits your workflow better
About Temporal
Temporal is a durable execution platform for building resilient applications with workflows. It lives in the infrastructure and operations ecosystem, specifically within orchestration and scheduling. The server executes units of application logic called Workflows and automatically handles intermittent failures by retrying failed operations. Temporal originated as a fork of Uber's Cadence and is developed by Temporal Technologies, a startup formed by the creators of Cadence.
read the full Temporal overview →
About dolphinscheduler
Apache DolphinScheduler is an Apache 2.0 licensed, Java based data orchestration platform for data engineers, analytics teams and platform operators who need to schedule complex task dependencies across data pipelines without building the control plane themselves.
read the full dolphinscheduler overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is Temporal or dolphinscheduler more popular?
Temporal has 23,133 GitHub stars and dolphinscheduler has 14,482. Temporal has the larger community by that measure.
Are Temporal and dolphinscheduler free?
Both are open source. Temporal is licensed under MIT and dolphinscheduler under Apache-2.0. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between Temporal and dolphinscheduler?
Temporal is written in Go and dolphinscheduler in Java. The practical differences are community size, licence terms, language stack and release cadence — all compared in the table above.
Which should I choose, Temporal or dolphinscheduler?
Choose Temporal if you want the larger community (23,133 stars) or its MIT licence terms. Choose dolphinscheduler if its feature set, stack or Apache-2.0 licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.