head to head · open source
xxl-job vs bree
xxl-job has 30,562 GitHub stars, 11,486 forks, 79 open issues and last shipped 2 months ago. bree has 3,293 stars, 87 forks, 29 open issues and last shipped 7 months ago. xxl-job leads on adoption by 828% (30,562 vs 3,293 stars). xxl-job is written in Java under GPL-3.0; bree is written in JavaScript under MIT. xxl-job has attracted 38% 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 | 2026-07-21 | 2026-02-17 |
| Forks | ⑂ 11K | ⑂ 87 |
| 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 is a distributed task scheduling framework written in Java and released under the GPL 3.0 licence, built for teams that need scheduled jobs to run reliably across a cluster of machines rather than inside a single application process.
read the full xxl-job overview →
About bree
Bree is Node.js and JavaScript job task scheduler. It runs scheduled work inside Node.js apps. It uses worker threads to spawn sandboxed processes. It supports cron, Date, ms, later, and human friendly syntax. It lives in Node.js scheduling ecosystem.
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Frequently asked questions
Is xxl-job or bree more popular?
xxl-job has 30,562 GitHub stars and bree has 3,293. 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 (30,562 stars) or its GPL-3.0 licence terms. Choose bree if its feature set, stack or MIT licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.