head to head · open source
workflow-core vs loonflow
workflow-core has 5,926 GitHub stars, 1,262 forks, 133 open issues and last shipped 4 days ago. loonflow has 2,090 stars, 704 forks, 19 open issues and last shipped 4 months ago. workflow-core leads on adoption by 184% (5,926 vs 2,090 stars). workflow-core is written in C# under MIT; loonflow is written in TypeScript under AGPL-3.0. workflow-core has attracted 21% as many forks as stars, loonflow 34%. workflow-core was the more recently maintained of the two, and both are self-hostable with no licence fee. The two share 2 topic tags (workflow, workflow-engine), 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
| workflow-core | loonflow | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 5.9K | ★ 2.1K |
| License | MIT | AGPL-3.0 |
| Written in | C# | TypeScript |
| Last push | 2026-09-16 | 2026-05-25 |
| Forks | ⑂ 1.3K | ⑂ 704 |
| Self-hosting | Yes | Yes |
| Data ownership | Your server | Your server |
pick workflow-core if
- You weight community size — 5.9K stars and counting
- You want the MIT license terms
- Your stack matches C#
- You value the larger contributor base for long-term maintenance
pick loonflow if
- You want the loonflow feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the AGPL-3.0 license terms
- Your stack matches TypeScript
- You evaluated both and loonflow fits your workflow better
About workflow-core
Workflow Core is a lightweight, embeddable workflow engine targeting .NET Standard, written in C and released under the MIT license. It lives in the .NET ecosystem, distributed as NuGet packages, and is built around the idea of long running processes that contain multiple tasks and must track their state between steps. Rather than running as a separate server, it is a library that is hosted inside an application, and it exposes a fluent C API for defining workflows. Workflows are expressed as a starting step followed by chained steps, and the same class can declare inputs and outputs that move data from one step …
read the full workflow-core overview →
About loonflow
Loonflow is an open source process automation platform for enterprises, built around ticket and workflow operations. It lives in the Django and Python web ecosystem, and the README also identifies React and MUI for the interface.
read the full loonflow overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is workflow-core or loonflow more popular?
workflow-core has 5,926 GitHub stars and loonflow has 2,090. workflow-core has the larger community by that measure.
Are workflow-core and loonflow free?
Both are open source. workflow-core is licensed under MIT and loonflow under AGPL-3.0. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between workflow-core and loonflow?
workflow-core is written in C# and loonflow 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, workflow-core or loonflow?
Choose workflow-core if you want the larger community (5,926 stars) or its MIT licence terms. Choose loonflow if its feature set, stack or AGPL-3.0 licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.