Conductor (Netflix) vs Dagu
| Tagline | Microservice workflow orchestration engine open-sourced by Netflix | DAG-based workflow orchestrator with a web UI — cron replacement with real dependencies |
| Category | Automation & iPaaS | Automation & iPaaS |
| Replaces | Zapier, Workato | Zapier, Make, Tray.io |
| GitHub stars | 32k | 3.7k |
| Language | Java | Go |
| License | Apache-2.0 | GPL-3.0 |
| Self-host difficulty | 4/5 Involved | 2/5 Easy |
| Deploy options | Docker Docker Compose Kubernetes Manual | Docker Manual |
| Managed hosting | ||
| Last updated | 9 days ago | 6 days ago |
| View repo | View repo |
Where each falls short
The honest trade-offs — what you give up with each, versus the proprietary tools they replace.
Conductor (Netflix)
- Workflow logic defined in JSON/YAML; no drag-and-drop canvas for non-technical users
- Requires Elasticsearch and a relational DB for production — non-trivial infrastructure
- Community edition lacks built-in RBAC available in the commercial Orkes Cloud offering
Dagu
- No distributed worker pool — all steps run on the same host, limiting horizontal scale
- No built-in secrets vault; credentials must be managed via environment variables or external tools
- UI is functional but lacks advanced features like parameterized run forms or dynamic DAG generation
- Community is smaller than Airflow or Prefect; fewer integrations and plugins
Bottom line
Choose Dagu if you want the lower-effort setup; choose Conductor (Netflix) for the larger community and ecosystem. Dagu has seen more recent development. Open each guide below for deploy steps and the full feature gap.
Conductor (Netflix)
Microservice workflow orchestration engine open-sourced by Netflix
Dagu
DAG-based workflow orchestrator with a web UI — cron replacement with real dependencies