Conductor OSS vs Maestral
A side-by-side comparison of two self-hosted automation & workflows options — licensing, setup difficulty, resource needs, and what each one replaces.
Not the right match-up?
Conductor OSS
Microservices and workflow orchestration engine
VS
Maestral
Lightweight Dropbox client that runs as a daemon
| Feature | Conductor OSS | Maestral |
|---|---|---|
| Category | Automation & Workflows | Automation & Workflows |
| License | Apache-2.0 | MIT |
| Language | Java | Python |
| Setup difficulty | Hard | Easy |
| Min. RAM | 2,048 MB | 256 MB |
| Deployment | docker, kubernetes, bare-metal | binary, source |
| GitHub stars | ★ 32,066 | ★ 3,335 |
| First released | 2016 | 2019 |
| Replaces | AWS Step Functions, Camunda | Dropbox client |
Why pick each one
Choose Maestral if…
- Released under the MIT license
- Easy to set up — beginner-friendly
- Active community (3.3k GitHub stars)
- Written in Python
Frequently asked questions
Is Conductor OSS or Maestral better?
Neither is universally better. Conductor OSS has the larger community, while Maestral is simpler to set up (easy difficulty). Choose based on the comparison table above and your own setup.
Are Conductor OSS and Maestral free and open-source?
Yes. Conductor OSS is licensed under Apache-2.0 and Maestral under MIT. Both can be self-hosted at no software cost.
Can I run Conductor OSS and Maestral with Docker?
Conductor OSS: yes. Maestral: check the project docs for container support.