head to head · open source
xxl-job vs obelisk
xxl-job has 30,561 GitHub stars, 11,486 forks, 79 open issues and last shipped 2 months ago. obelisk has 754 stars, 19 forks, 2 open issues and last shipped yesterday. xxl-job leads on adoption by 3,953% (30,561 vs 754 stars). xxl-job is written in Java under GPL-3.0; obelisk is written in Rust under AGPL-3.0. xxl-job has attracted 38% as many forks as stars, obelisk 3%. obelisk 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 | obelisk | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 31K | ★ 754 |
| License | GPL-3.0 | AGPL-3.0 |
| Written in | Java | Rust |
| Last push | 2026-07-21 | 2026-09-17 |
| Forks | ⑂ 11K | ⑂ 19 |
| 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 obelisk if
- You want the obelisk feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the AGPL-3.0 license terms
- Your stack matches Rust
- You evaluated both and obelisk 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 obelisk
Obelisk A deterministic workflow engine built on the WASM Component Model. [!WARNING] Pre release : Expect changes in CLI, gRPC, WIT, and database schema. Obelisk in Action The Stargazers app features: A webhook listening to GitHub star events. Activities for interacting with Turso DB, OpenAI, and GitHub. A workflow orchestrating the activities. Obelisk fly.io deployment tool features: A complete workflow for deploying Obelisk apps on fly.io Cleanup / compensating actions on failure What's Included Obelisk Runtime : A single binary executing deterministic workflows, activities, and webhook endpoints, persisting s…
read the full obelisk overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is xxl-job or obelisk more popular?
xxl-job has 30,561 GitHub stars and obelisk has 754. xxl-job has the larger community by that measure.
Are xxl-job and obelisk free?
Both are open source. xxl-job is licensed under GPL-3.0 and obelisk under AGPL-3.0. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between xxl-job and obelisk?
xxl-job is written in Java and obelisk in Rust. 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 obelisk?
Choose xxl-job if you want the larger community (30,561 stars) or its GPL-3.0 licence terms. Choose obelisk if its feature set, stack or AGPL-3.0 licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.