head to head · open source
xxl-job vs rulego
xxl-job has 30,562 GitHub stars, 11,486 forks, 79 open issues and last shipped 2 months ago. rulego has 1,605 stars, 156 forks, 4 open issues and last shipped 4 days ago. xxl-job leads on adoption by 1,804% (30,562 vs 1,605 stars). xxl-job is written in Java under GPL-3.0; rulego is written in Go under Apache-2.0. xxl-job has attracted 38% as many forks as stars, rulego 10%. rulego 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 | rulego | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 31K | ★ 1.6K |
| License | GPL-3.0 | Apache-2.0 |
| Written in | Java | Go |
| Last push | 2026-07-21 | 2026-09-14 |
| Forks | ⑂ 11K | ⑂ 156 |
| 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 rulego if
- You want the rulego feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the Apache-2.0 license terms
- Your stack matches Go
- You evaluated both and rulego 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 rulego
RuleGo is a Go language rule engine framework for component orchestration. It helps build loosely coupled systems that can respond to changes in business requirements in real time. The project lives in the Go ecosystem and uses the Apache 2.0 license.
read the full rulego overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is xxl-job or rulego more popular?
xxl-job has 30,562 GitHub stars and rulego has 1,605. xxl-job has the larger community by that measure.
Are xxl-job and rulego free?
Both are open source. xxl-job is licensed under GPL-3.0 and rulego under Apache-2.0. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between xxl-job and rulego?
xxl-job is written in Java and rulego in Go. 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 rulego?
Choose xxl-job if you want the larger community (30,562 stars) or its GPL-3.0 licence terms. Choose rulego if its feature set, stack or Apache-2.0 licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.