head to head · open source
xxl-job vs Prefect
xxl-job has 30,562 GitHub stars, 11,486 forks, 79 open issues and last shipped 2 months ago. Prefect has 23,857 stars, 2,528 forks, 858 open issues and last shipped yesterday. xxl-job leads on adoption by 28% (30,562 vs 23,857 stars). xxl-job is written in Java under GPL-3.0; Prefect is written in Python under Apache-2.0. xxl-job has attracted 38% as many forks as stars, Prefect 11%. Prefect 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 | Prefect | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 31K | ★ 24K |
| License | GPL-3.0 | Apache-2.0 |
| Written in | Java | Python |
| Last push | 2026-07-21 | 2026-09-17 |
| Forks | ⑂ 11K | ⑂ 2.5K |
| 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 Prefect if
- You want the Prefect 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 Prefect 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 Prefect
Prefect is an open source, Python native workflow orchestration framework that lets data and machine learning teams turn ordinary Python scripts into scheduled, resilient, observable production pipelines.
read the full Prefect overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is xxl-job or Prefect more popular?
xxl-job has 30,562 GitHub stars and Prefect has 23,857. xxl-job has the larger community by that measure.
Are xxl-job and Prefect free?
Both are open source. xxl-job is licensed under GPL-3.0 and Prefect under Apache-2.0. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between xxl-job and Prefect?
xxl-job is written in Java and Prefect 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 Prefect?
Choose xxl-job if you want the larger community (30,562 stars) or its GPL-3.0 licence terms. Choose Prefect if its feature set, stack or Apache-2.0 licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.