kestra vs loopy
kestra is much bigger: 28.0k stars against 3.1k. Over the days we have tracked them kestra moved +4.1% and loopy +4335.7%, so loopy is growing faster right now.
They split the axes: kestra leads on customization and privacy, loopy on context depth and noise control and model freedom.
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
Combines a public, curated catalog of reusable agent loops with an installable in-agent skill that discovers, crafts, audits, runs, and prepares loops for publication.
- Stars
- 3.1k
- Tracked growth
- +4335.7%
- Maturity
- ●●●●●
- Last commit
- 41d ago
- Language
- JavaScript
- License
- MIT
- Cost to run
- Requires cloud agent provider (may incur provider cost)
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 | loopy |
|---|---|---|
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 | ●●●●● Whole-repo analysis |
Noise control How it keeps output volume down — severity thresholds, deduplication, incremental runs over new commits only. | ●●●●● Real-time validation | ●●●●● Acceptance gating |
Customization How far it bends to your team: custom rules, prompts, style guides, per-path config. | ●●●●● Plugins & YAML | ●●●●● Adapt & save loops |
Privacy Whether your code stays on your own infrastructure: fully local, self-hostable, or cloud API only. | ●●●●● Self-hostable | ●●●●● Depends on cloud agents |
Model freedom Whether you can point it at any provider, or it is wired to one. | ●●●●● No model support | ●●●●● Multiple agents supported |
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.
- Customization: Plugins & YAML (5/5 against 3/5)
- Privacy: Self-hostable (5/5 against 2/5)
Pick loopy if…
Easy setup — a one-command npx installer and in-agent slash-commands let you discover, adapt, run, and publish repeatable agent workflows with built-in acceptance checks and explicit approvals.
- Context depth: Whole-repo analysis (5/5 against 1/5)
- Noise control: Acceptance gating (5/5 against 3/5)
- Model freedom: Multiple agents supported (3/5 against 1/5)
What people want from each one
kestra-io/kestra
Hacker News: Show HN: Kestra - Open-Source Airflow Alternative drew 142 points and 69 comments.
Forward-Future/loopy
Questions people ask
Is kestra better than loopy?
They split the axes: kestra leads on customization and privacy, loopy on context depth and noise control and model freedom. 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 loopy keeps my code private?
kestra: Self-hostable (5/5). loopy: Depends on cloud agents (2/5).
What does each one cost to run?
kestra: Free, self-hosted. loopy: Requires cloud agent provider (may incur provider cost).
Full profiles: kestra-io/kestra and Forward-Future/loopy. Everything else in Workflow & graph engines.