kestra vs langgraph
The two are close in size: 28.0k stars for kestra, 41.1k for langgraph. Over the days we have tracked them kestra moved +4.1% and langgraph +19.2%, so langgraph is growing faster right now.
kestra leads on noise control and customization and privacy. langgraph does not take any axis by a clear margin.
Stars and commit dates come from our own daily tracking. The six axes are read off each project's documentation by our review pipeline, so they describe what a project says about itself, not what we measured in its code.
Where they stand today
An event-driven, open-source orchestration platform that combines a declarative YAML workflow model with a rich plugin ecosystem and a visual editor for building and running workflows across environments.
- Stars
- 28.0k
- Tracked growth
- +4.1%
- Maturity
- ●●●●●
- Last commit
- 15h ago
- Language
- Java
- License
- Apache-2.0
- Cost to run
- Free, self-hosted
Provides low-level orchestration for long-running, stateful agents with durable execution and human-in-the-loop capabilities that typical stateless workflow engines do not emphasize.
- Stars
- 41.1k
- Tracked growth
- +19.2%
- Maturity
- ●●●●●
- Last commit
- 1d ago
- Language
- Python
- License
- MIT
- Cost to run
- Free, open-source
Six axes, head to head
Each axis runs 0 to 5. The label under a score is what that project's own docs claim, not a category average.
| Axis | kestra | langgraph |
|---|---|---|
Context depth How much of your codebase it sees before it answers: the open diff, the diff plus related files, or the whole repository. | ●●●●● Flow-level only | ●●●●● Diff only |
Noise control How it keeps output volume down — severity thresholds, deduplication, incremental runs over new commits only. | ●●●●● Real-time validation | ●●●●● None mentioned |
Customization How far it bends to your team: custom rules, prompts, style guides, per-path config. | ●●●●● Plugins & YAML | ●●●●● No config |
Privacy Whether your code stays on your own infrastructure: fully local, self-hostable, or cloud API only. | ●●●●● Self-hostable | ●●●●● Third-party cloud |
Model freedom Whether you can point it at any provider, or it is wired to one. | ●●●●● No model support | ●●●●● Fixed provider |
Setup ease What it takes to get a first useful run out of it. | ●●●●● One-command start | ●●●●● One-command install |
Which one to pick
Pick kestra if…
Easy setup — get a local instance with a single Docker command and build, visualize, and run workflows from the UI while keeping workflows declarative in YAML.
- Noise control: Real-time validation (3/5 against 1/5)
- Customization: Plugins & YAML (5/5 against 1/5)
- Privacy: Self-hostable (5/5 against 1/5)
Pick langgraph if…
Durable execution — choose LangGraph when you need persistent, stateful agents with human-in-the-loop oversight and production deployment support.
What people want from each one
kestra-io/kestra
Hacker News: Show HN: Kestra - Open-Source Airflow Alternative drew 142 points and 69 comments.
langchain-ai/langgraph
Hacker News: We chose LangGraph to build our coding agent drew 83 points and 20 comments.
Questions people ask
Is kestra better than langgraph?
kestra leads on noise control and customization and privacy. langgraph does not take any axis by a clear margin. kestra is worth picking when easy setup — get a local instance with a single Docker command and build, visualize, and run workflows from the UI while keeping workflows declarative in YAML.
Which of kestra and langgraph keeps my code private?
kestra: Self-hostable (5/5). langgraph: Third-party cloud (1/5).
What does each one cost to run?
kestra: Free, self-hosted. langgraph: Free, open-source.
Full profiles: kestra-io/kestra and langchain-ai/langgraph. Everything else in Workflow & graph engines.