head to head · open source
xxl-job vs harmonist
xxl-job has 30,561 GitHub stars, 11,486 forks, 79 open issues and last shipped 2 months ago. harmonist has 2,256 stars, 206 forks, 1 open issues and last shipped 3 months ago. xxl-job leads on adoption by 1,255% (30,561 vs 2,256 stars). xxl-job is written in Java under GPL-3.0; harmonist is written in Python under MIT. xxl-job has attracted 38% as many forks as stars, harmonist 9%. xxl-job 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
| xxl-job | harmonist | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 31K | ★ 2.3K |
| License | GPL-3.0 | MIT |
| Written in | Java | Python |
| Last push | 2026-07-21 | 2026-06-09 |
| Forks | ⑂ 11K | ⑂ 206 |
| 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 harmonist if
- You want the harmonist feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the MIT license terms
- Your stack matches Python
- You evaluated both and harmonist 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 harmonist
If you are an AI agent asked to install or integrate this pack: read integration prompt.md and execute its steps. Do not apply AGENTS.template.md as a live rule inside the pack folder — it is the template that becomes the user project's AGENTS.md during integration. Harmonist Portable AI agent orchestration with mechanical protocol enforcement A drop in multi agent framework for Cursor, Claude Code, Copilot, Windsurf, Aider, and other AI coding assistants. Built and maintained by GammaLab · @GammaLabTechnologies Most AI coding frameworks trust the language model to follow the rules. Harmonist refuses to let it sk…
read the full harmonist overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is xxl-job or harmonist more popular?
xxl-job has 30,561 GitHub stars and harmonist has 2,256. xxl-job has the larger community by that measure.
Are xxl-job and harmonist free?
Both are open source. xxl-job is licensed under GPL-3.0 and harmonist under MIT. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between xxl-job and harmonist?
xxl-job is written in Java and harmonist 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, xxl-job or harmonist?
Choose xxl-job if you want the larger community (30,561 stars) or its GPL-3.0 licence terms. Choose harmonist if its feature set, stack or MIT licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.