head to head · open source
Temporal vs Mage
Temporal has 23,133 GitHub stars, 1,905 forks, 956 open issues and last shipped yesterday. Mage has 8,823 stars, 990 forks, 624 open issues and last shipped 7 days ago. Temporal leads on adoption by 162% (23,133 vs 8,823 stars). Temporal is written in Go under MIT; Mage is written in Python under Apache-2.0. Temporal has attracted 8% as many forks as stars, Mage 11%. 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 | Mage | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 23K | ★ 8.8K |
| License | MIT | Apache-2.0 |
| Written in | Go | Python |
| Last push | 2026-09-17 | 2026-09-11 |
| Forks | ⑂ 1.9K | ⑂ 990 |
| 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 Mage if
- You want the Mage feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the Apache-2.0 license terms
- Your stack matches Python
- You evaluated both and Mage 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 Mage
Mage is an Apache 2.0 licensed, self hosted development environment for building, running, and managing data pipelines, aimed at data engineers, data scientists, and analytics teams who want to develop ETL, ELT, and orchestration workflows locally before scaling them.
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Frequently asked questions
Is Temporal or Mage more popular?
Temporal has 23,133 GitHub stars and Mage has 8,823. Temporal has the larger community by that measure.
Are Temporal and Mage free?
Both are open source. Temporal is licensed under MIT and Mage under Apache-2.0. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between Temporal and Mage?
Temporal is written in Go and Mage in Python. 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 Mage?
Choose Temporal if you want the larger community (23,133 stars) or its MIT licence terms. Choose Mage if its feature set, stack or Apache-2.0 licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.