Conductor

A durable workflow engine, first built at Netflix, that coordinates microservices and AI agents with retries, branching, approvals and full execution history.

32.4k stars, 1k forks Java On GitHub since December 2023

Visit website View on GitHub How to run it

What is Conductor?

Conductor runs workflows defined as JSON or through its SDKs, and calls your workers or services at each step. Every step's state is stored, so a workflow survives crashes and restarts and can be inspected or replayed later. It handles loops, fan-out, timeouts, human approvals and cancellation, and recent versions add AI agent and tool-calling tasks. Netflix created it; today it is maintained by Orkes and the community.

Good fit if

  • You coordinate long-running processes across several services and need them to finish reliably.
  • You want a central place to see where each execution is and why it failed.
  • Your workers are written in different languages.

Look elsewhere if

  • You want workflows written as ordinary code in your application: Temporal or Hatchet.
  • You need no-code business automation for non-developers: n8n or Activepieces.

Before you adopt it

Conductor is Apache-2.0, with no paid parts in the repository; Orkes sells a hosted and enterprise version. The default stack needs Redis and Elasticsearch next to the server, and the quick start needs Java 21 or newer.

Drafted with AI from the project's README and repository data, then checked against that data on 30 October 2026. Report a correction

Conductor health: is it still maintained?

78 of 100, actively developed

  • Activity
    190 commits in the last 90 days, the latest on 29 October 2026.
    28 / 30
  • Contributors
    23 people wrote the latest 100 commits; the most active wrote 34% of them.
    19 / 20
  • Releases
    5 releases in the last 12 months; the latest, v3.33.0, on 26 October 2026.
    16 / 20
  • Replies to issues
    Too few recent issues from outside the team to measure, so this part gets a neutral score.
    10 / 20
  • Security practices
    No OpenSSF Scorecard for this repository yet, so this part gets a neutral score.
    5 / 10

Read from GitHub on 1 November 2026. How the score works

Conductor license: is it open source?

Conductor uses Apache-2.0, an open-source license approved by the OSI.

  1. December 2023First published on GitHub.
  2. TodayApache-2.0.

How to run Conductor yourself

Docker
Dockerfile or compose file in the repository
Compose file
docker/docker-compose.yaml: 3 services (redis, elasticsearch)
Setup effort
3 of 5, judged from the compose file
Kubernetes
No Helm chart in the repository
Desktop and mobile
No app builds in GitHub releases
Interface languages
English only

Install instructions: docs.conductor-oss.org or the README on GitHub.

Alternatives to Conductor

  • TemporalTemporal service 83 health · MIT · 24.1k stars
  • HatchetAn orchestration engine for background tasks, AI agents, and durable workflows 83 health · MIT · 8.2k stars
  • Trigger.devTrigger.dev – build and deploy durable AI agents and workflows 84 health · Apache-2.0 · 16.7k stars
  • ActivepiecesAI Agents & MCPs & AI Workflow Automation • (~400 MCP servers for AI agents) • AI Automation / AI Agent with… 81 health · MIT · 25.3k stars
  • DaguSelf-hostable workflow orchestrator for teams whose main work isn't orchestration. Declarative YAML over… 77 health · GPL-3.0 · 4.5k stars

All 33 projects in Workflow automation

Questions about Conductor

Is Conductor open source?

Yes. Conductor is published under Apache-2.0, an OSI-approved open-source license.

Is Conductor still maintained?

Its health score is 78 of 100 (actively developed). It had 190 commits in the last 90 days, the latest on 29 October 2026, and its latest release came out on 26 October 2026.

How do I run Conductor?

You can run it with Docker. The README on GitHub has the exact steps.

What are the alternatives to Conductor?

Close alternatives in the Workflow automation category include Temporal, Hatchet, Trigger.dev.