Alternatives to Windmill
An open-source, self-hostable platform for turning scripts into workflows, internal apps and scheduled jobs. The listings below can replace it for an important use case. Each note says what changes if you switch.
The original
Windmill
An open-source, self-hostable platform for turning scripts into workflows, internal apps and scheduled jobs.
Replacements
Listings that take over the same core job as Windmill.
n8n
Source-available workflow automation platform with AI nodes and self-hosting.
n8n is source-available and self-hostable, leaning on no-code nodes with AI features and optional custom code, rather than Windmill's code-first scripts in many languages.
Activepieces
An open-source automation platform for building workflows, AI agents and app integrations, self-hosted or cloud.
Activepieces is open source and self-hostable with more than 760 app integrations, webhook triggers and AI agents, aimed more at no-code flows than internal apps.
Node-RED
Visual flow-based programming tool for wiring together automations and APIs.
Node-RED is free, open source and self-hostable, using visual drag-and-drop flows with debugging tools instead of scripts, and does not build internal apps.
huginn
Build self-hosted agents that watch for events and trigger actions.
Huginn is MIT-licensed and self-hosted, organizing automation as agents that watch events and trigger actions instead of scripts turned into APIs, jobs and forms.
Zapier
A hosted no-code automation platform that connects thousands of web apps through workflows and AI agents.
Zapier is a hosted, proprietary no-code platform with more than 9,000 integrations, dropping self-hosting and code-first scripting for data passing through Zapier.
Make
A visual automation platform, formerly Integromat, that connects apps and webhooks into workflows.
Make is a proprietary cloud-only visual builder with more than 1,500 integrations, so you give up self-hosting and multi-language scripts for no-code workflows.
Kestra
An open-source declarative orchestration platform for scheduled and event-driven workflows, self-hosted or in the cloud.
Kestra uses declarative workflows with more than 2,000 plugins and scheduled or event-driven triggers, rather than turning scripts directly into APIs and internal apps.
Prefect
A workflow orchestration tool for scheduling, retrying and observing Python data and ML pipelines.
Prefect is Apache-2.0 licensed and defines flows with Python decorators, focused on data and ML pipelines rather than multi-language internal tools.
Also worth comparing
These listings name Windmill as their own alternative, so the relationship runs both ways.
Apache Airflow
A self-hosted platform for writing, scheduling and monitoring workflows defined as Python code.
Windmill turns scripts in TypeScript, Python, Go, Bash and other languages into workflows, internal apps and scheduled jobs, with some features in an enterprise edition.
Conductor
An open-source, event-driven workflow engine for durable execution of application and AI agent workflows.
Windmill turns scripts in TypeScript, Python, Go, Bash and other languages into workflows, APIs and scheduled jobs, adds internal apps, and ties some features to an enterprise edition.
Cronicle
A self-hosted, distributed task scheduler and runner with a web interface.
Windmill turns scripts in over 20 languages into scheduled jobs, workflows and internal apps, self-hosted or cloud, but it is aimed at teams comfortable writing code and has enterprise-only features.
Dagster
An open-source orchestrator for building, scheduling and monitoring data pipelines, with a hosted Dagster+ option.
Windmill turns scripts in more than 20 languages into workflows, internal apps and schedules, aimed more broadly than data pipelines, with some enterprise-only features.
Dagu
A self-hosted workflow orchestrator that runs scripts, SSH commands and containers from declarative YAML files.
Windmill builds workflows, schedules and internal apps from scripts in over 20 languages, self-hosted or in the cloud, with some features reserved for the enterprise edition.
Flyte
An open-source orchestration platform for durable data, machine learning and AI agent workflows written in Python.
Windmill turns scripts in over 20 languages into workflows, internal apps and schedules, with some features tied to its enterprise edition.
PowerShell Universal
A self-hosted platform that turns PowerShell scripts into scheduled automation, REST APIs and web dashboards.
Windmill is open source and turns scripts in TypeScript, Python, Go, Bash and 20+ languages into APIs, jobs and internal apps, with some enterprise-only features.
Rundeck
A self-hosted runbook automation server that lets chosen users run existing scripts, tools and jobs.
Windmill is an open-source, self-hostable platform that turns scripts into jobs, forms and internal apps with schedules, aimed at teams who write code.
Semaphore UI
Run infrastructure automation jobs from a web dashboard.
Windmill is an open-source, self-hostable platform that runs Bash, Python and other scripts as scheduled jobs and workflows from a web interface, rather than organizing Ansible tasks.
StackStorm
A self-hosted, event-driven automation platform that connects apps and services through rules and workflows.
Windmill turns scripts in TypeScript, Python, Go, Bash and other languages into workflows, internal apps and scheduled jobs, with some features tied to its enterprise edition.
Trigger.dev
An open-source platform for durable background jobs, scheduled tasks and AI agents written in TypeScript.
Windmill turns scripts in TypeScript, Python, Go, Bash and other languages into workflows, internal apps and scheduled jobs. It is self-hostable, with some features in the enterprise edition.
webhook
A lightweight server that runs shell commands when incoming HTTP webhooks match configured hooks.
Windmill is an open-source self-hostable platform that turns scripts in many languages into webhook handlers, jobs and apps with a web interface, but it is a much larger system.
webhookd
A small webhook server that runs shell scripts and external processes when HTTP requests arrive.
Windmill replaces a lightweight script server with a full self-hostable platform that turns scripts in 20+ languages into APIs, workflows, schedules and internal apps, with some features tied to the enterprise edition.
Similar software
Related functionality, not a direct replacement.
cron-job.org
A free hosted scheduler that calls URLs on a schedule, from once a minute to yearly.
EasyCron
A hosted cron service that calls your URLs on a schedule and logs each run.
Cronitor
A hosted monitoring service for cron jobs, background workers, websites and APIs, with failure alerts.
