Apache Airflow vs Dagu

Apache Airflow is a platform for authoring, scheduling, and monitoring workflows written in Python. It is designed for batch workflows with a defined beginning and end that run on a schedule. Its web application lets users manage and schedule workflows, trigger DAGs manually, inspect task status and logs, backfill runs, and rerun failed tasks. A modular architecture uses a message queue to coordinate workers and can orchestrate an arbitrary number of them. Built-in operators connect workflows to Google Cloud Platform, Amazon Web Services, Microsoft Azure, and other services. The community maintains more than 80 separately installable provider packages, which can be upgraded or downgraded independently of Airflow core. Airflow can read connections, variables, and configuration from secret backends, but those integrations do not support writes. JWT authentication is used for its public REST API and internal Execution API. From Airflow 3 onward, sensitive credentials are masked in logs, the interface, and API output. Airflow is free to download and use under the Apache License.

Dagu is a self-hosted workflow engine for defining DAG workflows in YAML and managing runs, logs and retries through a built-in web interface. It runs as a single binary locally or across distributed workers, without an external database or message broker. Workflows can run shell scripts, Docker containers, SSH commands, SQL queries, HTTP requests, chat completion steps and Agent Harness steps. Scheduling supports cron timezones, catchup windows, overlap and retry policies, zombie detection, lifecycle handlers and notifications. Built-in actions cover HTTP, mail, SSH, SFTP, Git, S3, Redis, LLM, browser, computer, SQL, PostgreSQL, SQLite and DuckDB. Dagu also supports MCP connections from clients including Claude Code, Codex, Cursor, VS Code, Gemini CLI, OpenCode, Zed and Cline. The project is open source under GNU GPL v3.0. Its free Community plan includes unlimited servers and workers, with up to two API keys. Team is $50 a month and Pro is $150 a month; both add SSO, role-based access, audit logging, incident routing and standard support.