head to head · open source
xxl-job vs Mage
xxl-job has 30,562 GitHub stars, 11,486 forks, 79 open issues and last shipped 2 months ago. Mage has 8,823 stars, 990 forks, 624 open issues and last shipped 7 days ago. xxl-job leads on adoption by 246% (30,562 vs 8,823 stars). xxl-job is written in Java under GPL-3.0; Mage is written in Python under Apache-2.0. xxl-job has attracted 38% as many forks as stars, Mage 11%. Mage 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 | Mage | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 31K | ★ 8.8K |
| License | GPL-3.0 | Apache-2.0 |
| Written in | Java | Python |
| Last push | 2026-07-21 | 2026-09-11 |
| Forks | ⑂ 11K | ⑂ 990 |
| 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 Mage if
- You want the Mage feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the Apache-2.0 license terms
- Your stack matches Python
- You evaluated both and Mage 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 Mage
Mage is an Apache 2.0 licensed, self hosted development environment for building, running, and managing data pipelines, aimed at data engineers, data scientists, and analytics teams who want to develop ETL, ELT, and orchestration workflows locally before scaling them.
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Frequently asked questions
Is xxl-job or Mage more popular?
xxl-job has 30,562 GitHub stars and Mage has 8,823. xxl-job has the larger community by that measure.
Are xxl-job and Mage free?
Both are open source. xxl-job is licensed under GPL-3.0 and Mage under Apache-2.0. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between xxl-job and Mage?
xxl-job is written in Java and Mage 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 Mage?
Choose xxl-job if you want the larger community (30,562 stars) or its GPL-3.0 licence terms. Choose Mage if its feature set, stack or Apache-2.0 licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.