Dagster vs Kestra
Dagster
dagster.io
Kestra
kestra.ioSide by side
| Figure | Dagster | Kestra |
|---|---|---|
| Price from | $10/mo | Free |
| Free plan | — | Yes |
| Free trial | Yes | Yes |
| Open source | — | Yes |
| Web | Yes | Yes |
| Windows | — | Yes |
| macOS | — | Yes |
| Linux | Yes | Yes |
| API | Yes | Yes |
| Self-hosted | Yes | Yes |
| Plans published | 6 | 4 |
| Spec score · Workflow Orchestration Software | 8.3 (#13) | 8.6 (#10) |
| Spec score · Workload Automation Software | 8.3 (#10) | 8.6 (#6) |
| Spec score · DataOps Platforms | 8.3 (#8) | 8.6 (#6) |
| Integrations | The official integration directory lists tools including Airbyte, Anthropic, Apache Airflow, AWS services, and Azure Data Lake Storage. | The plugin catalog covers databases, warehouses, queues, cloud services, CI/CD and security tools, with more than 2,200 plugins advertised on the features page. |
| Support | The plan comparison lists community and Support Center and Ask AI support, while Pro includes personalized onboarding support and a private Slack channel. | Enterprise Edition includes a customer success program and enterprise support with an SLA. |
| What it does | Dagster describes itself as a data-aware orchestrator for building, running, and monitoring data pipelines and assets. | Kestra is an open-source orchestration platform for scheduled and event-driven data, AI, infrastructure and business workflows. |
Plans
Dagster
- Solo$10 a month
- Starter$100 a month
- ProPriced on request
- Solo Plan$10 a month
- Starter Plan$100 a month
- Pro PlanPriced on request
Kestra
- Open SourceFree
- Enterprise EditionPriced on request
- Kestra CloudPriced on request
- Kestra CloudPriced on request
In their own words
Dagster
Dagster is a data-aware orchestrator for building, running and monitoring data pipelines and assets. It models assets and dependencies to show lineage across a data platform, while supporting partitions, incremental runs, declarative workflows and fault-tolerant orchestration. An integrated catalog combines data discovery, lineage, workflows and operational metadata. Quality features include code-embedded validation, automated testing, freshness checks and observability tools. The integration directory lists Airbyte, Anthropic, Apache Airflow, AWS services and Azure Data Lake Storage. Dagster+ hybrid deployment keeps compute in a customer’s infrastructure while Dagster manages the control plane. The core framework is open source on GitHub. Platforms listed are API, Linux, self-hosted and web; deployment is hybrid. A 30-day trial is listed. Solo costs $10 a month plus usage charges, and Starter costs $100 a month plus usage charges. Dagster’s website says it is now part of Prefect.
Kestra
Kestra is a declarative orchestration platform for building, running, and governing workflows across an organization. Workflows, called flows, are defined in YAML and can combine tasks, dependencies, conditions, triggers, and runtime parameters. Execution controls include retries, failure policies, timeouts, concurrency limits, worker assignment, and log capture. Kestra advertises more than 2,000 plugins for connecting to external tools, with examples including Airbyte, AWS, Azure, BigQuery, dbt, Docker, GitHub, Kafka, Kubernetes, Slack, Snowflake, and Terraform. A flow can orchestrate SQL, Python, shell, APIs, Terraform, dbt, Spark, and custom tools. The platform includes an MCP server for AI agents and supports exposing flows as callable tools. Teams can self-host with Docker or Kubernetes; Enterprise Edition also supports cloud, on-premises, and air-gapped environments. Setup instructions cover macOS, Windows, and Linux, alongside web and API platforms. Kestra Cloud advertises up to two months free during team setup. The Open Source and Enterprise Edition plans have no price listed.