head to head · open source
jenkins vs wtf
jenkins has 26,556 GitHub stars, 9,835 forks, 3,610 open issues and last shipped yesterday. wtf has 17,093 stars, 864 forks, 107 open issues and last shipped 16 days ago. jenkins leads on adoption by 55% (26,556 vs 17,093 stars). jenkins is written in Java under MIT; wtf is written in Go under MPL-2.0. jenkins has attracted 37% as many forks as stars, wtf 5%. jenkins was the more recently maintained of the two, and both are self-hostable with no licence fee. The two share 2 topic tags (devops, hacktoberfest), 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.
← all 8884 open source comparisons
Side by side
| jenkins | wtf | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 27K | ★ 17K |
| License | MIT | MPL-2.0 |
| Written in | Java | Go |
| Last push | 2026-09-17 | 2026-09-02 |
| Forks | ⑂ 9.8K | ⑂ 864 |
| Self-hosting | Yes | Yes |
| Data ownership | Your server | Your server |
pick jenkins if
- You weight community size — 27K stars and counting
- You want the MIT license terms
- Your stack matches Java
- You value the larger contributor base for long-term maintenance
pick wtf if
- You want the wtf feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the MPL-2.0 license terms
- Your stack matches Go
- You evaluated both and wtf fits your workflow better
About jenkins
Jenkins is an open source automation server built with Java and released under the MIT license. It lives in the continuous integration and continuous delivery ecosystem, where it has served as a central automation hub for roughly sixteen years. The project is developed in the open on GitHub, where it has accumulated 26,546 stars and 9,833 forks, and it is distributed through the official jenkins.io website alongside documentation, plugin listings, and release notes. Two release lines are maintained: a weekly line that carries all new features, improvements, and bug fixes, and a Long Term Support line that receive…
read the full jenkins overview →
About wtf
WTF (also known as wtfutil) is a free, open source personal information dashboard that runs in the terminal, built for developers and technical people who want at a glance access to important but infrequently consulted data without leaving the command line.
More in Infrastructure & Operations
Related comparisons
More Cloud Infrastructure Management projects
Compare either of these against the rest of the Cloud Infrastructure Management field.
Frequently asked questions
Is jenkins or wtf more popular?
jenkins has 26,556 GitHub stars and wtf has 17,093. jenkins has the larger community by that measure.
Are jenkins and wtf free?
Both are open source. jenkins is licensed under MIT and wtf under MPL-2.0. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between jenkins and wtf?
jenkins is written in Java and wtf 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, jenkins or wtf?
Choose jenkins if you want the larger community (26,556 stars) or its MIT licence terms. Choose wtf if its feature set, stack or MPL-2.0 licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.