head to head · open source
xxl-job vs bree
xxl-job has 30,648 GitHub stars, 11,492 forks, 79 open issues and last shipped 25 days ago. bree has 3,297 stars, 91 forks, 29 open issues and last shipped 9 months ago. xxl-job leads on adoption by 830% (30,648 vs 3,297 stars). xxl-job is written in Java under GPL-3.0; bree is written in JavaScript under MIT. xxl-job has attracted 37% as many forks as stars, bree 3%. xxl-job was the more recently maintained of the two, and both are self-hostable with no licence fee. The two share 2 topic tags (cron, job), 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
| xxl-job | bree | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 31K | ★ 3.3K |
| License | GPL-3.0 | MIT |
| Written in | Java | JavaScript |
| Last push | 2026-10-09 | 2026-02-17 |
| Forks | ⑂ 11K | ⑂ 91 |
| Self-hosting | Yes | Yes |
| Data ownership | Your server | Your server |
pick xxl-job if
- You weight community size — 31K stars and counting
- You want the GPL-3.0 license terms
- Your stack matches Java
- You value the larger contributor base for long-term maintenance
pick bree if
- You want the bree feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the MIT license terms
- Your stack matches JavaScript
- You evaluated both and bree fits your workflow better
About xxl-job
XXL JOB XXL JOB, a distributed task scheduling framework. Home Page Introduction XXL JOB is a distributed task scheduling framework. It's core design goal is to develop quickly and learn simple, lightweight, and easy to expand. Now, it's already open source, and many companies use it in production environments, real "out of the box". XXL JOB是一个分布式任务调度平台，其核心设计目标是开发迅速、学习简单、轻量级、易扩展。现已开放源代码并接入多家公司线上产品线，开箱即用。 Sponsor XXL JOB is an open source and free project, with its ongoing development made possible entirely by the support of these awesome backers. XXL JOB 是一个开源且免费项目，其正在进行的开发完全得益于支持者的支持。开源不易，前往赞助项目开发 金牌赞助方 阿里云…
read the full xxl-job overview →
About bree
Bree is the best job scheduler for Node.js and JavaScript with cron , dates , ms , later , and human friendly support. Works in Node v12.17.0+, uses worker threads (Node.js) to spawn sandboxed processes, and supports async/await , retries , throttling , concurrency , and cancelable jobs with graceful shutdown . Simple, fast, and lightweight. Made for Forward Email and Lad . Table of Contents Foreword Install Upgrading Usage and Examples ECMAScript modules (ESM) CommonJS (CJS) Instance Options Job Options Job Interval and Timeout Values Listening for events Custom error/message handling Cancellation, Retries…
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Frequently asked questions
Is xxl-job or bree more popular?
xxl-job has 30,648 GitHub stars and bree has 3,297. xxl-job has the larger community by that measure.
Are xxl-job and bree free?
Both are open source. xxl-job is licensed under GPL-3.0 and bree under MIT. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between xxl-job and bree?
xxl-job is written in Java and bree in JavaScript. The practical differences are community size, licence terms, language stack and release cadence — all compared in the table above.
Which should I choose, xxl-job or bree?
Choose xxl-job if you want the larger community (30,648 stars) or its GPL-3.0 licence terms. Choose bree if its feature set, stack or MIT licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.