Orkes alternatives (2026)

Orkes is a frameworks tool: Orchestration platform built on Conductor for durable workflows and AI agents. Pricing, as the maker states it: Open source + cloud. Its GitHub repo has 32,319 stars. We found 127 tools in the directory that do overlapping work (automating workflows, building AI agents, building multi-agent systems); 122 of them are open source and 1 list a free or freemium plan. Below are the 10 closest, ranked by how many tasks and sub-tasks they share with Orkes, then by GitHub stars.

1. Ruflo (Open source): Open-source multi-agent meta-harness for Claude Code, Codex, and MCP clients; Oct 13 release adds Mods (mission workflows) and a single control plane with human approval. Consider it because it also covers running many agents in parallel and agent frameworks and SDKs; it has more GitHub stars (74,609 vs 32,319).
2. OpenAI Agents SDK (Python) (Open source): OpenAI's Python SDK for building multi-agent workflows; v0.23.0/0.23.1 released Oct 1-2. Consider it because it also covers agent frameworks and SDKs.
3. Microsoft Agent Framework (Open source): Microsoft's framework for building and orchestrating agents and multi-agent workflows in Python and .NET. Consider it because it also covers agent frameworks and SDKs.
4. Dagu (Open source): Self-hostable workflow orchestrator with a simple definition format and web UI, usable for agent jobs. Consider it because it does the same job with a different approach (open source).
5. Haystack (Open source + cloud): Open-source orchestration framework for building production LLM apps, RAG and agents. Consider it because it also covers RAG and documents and agent frameworks and SDKs.
6. AutoGPT (Source-available + cloud): One of the first autonomous agent projects, now a platform for building, deploying and running continuous AI agents that automate workflows. Consider it because it has more GitHub stars (187,612 vs 32,319).
7. MetaGPT (Open source): Multi-agent framework that assigns roles like product manager and engineer to LLM agents to build software. Consider it because it also covers agent frameworks and SDKs; it has more GitHub stars (70,885 vs 32,319).
8. AutoGen (Open source): Microsoft's framework for multi-agent conversations, now archived and no longer maintained; Microsoft points new users to Microsoft Agent Framework. Consider it because it also covers agent frameworks and SDKs; it has more GitHub stars (61,395 vs 32,319).
9. CrewAI (Open source + cloud): Framework for role-based multi-agent crews. Consider it because it also covers agent frameworks and SDKs; it has more GitHub stars (59,675 vs 32,319).
10. LangGraph (Open source): Framework for stateful, graph-based agent workflows. Consider it because it also covers agent frameworks and SDKs; it has more GitHub stars (43,237 vs 32,319).

Orkes vs alternatives at a glance

More: Orkes listing · All frameworks tools · All alternatives pages

Related searches: Open-source AI agent frameworks · Multi-agent frameworks · Open-source AI workflow automation tools

Alternatives are picked from directory data only: same category plus shared tasks and sub-tasks. Pricing is as each maker states it; GitHub stars as recorded on each listing.