#9898th of 102 in Backends, databases and hosting
openwhisk
Serverless functions platform with triggers, rules and action composition
- Stars
- 6.8k
- License
- Apache-2.0
- Last commit
- Nov 2026
- Last release
- Apr 2024
- Language
- Scala
6,737 on 21 Apr 20266,806 on 10 Nov 2026
From GitHub's daily star counts.
Checked on GitHub.
Overview
Apache OpenWhisk runs functions as serverless actions, exposes them as APIs, and wires events to them through triggers and rules. Each function runs in its own Docker container. It runs as a single Java process (Standalone mode) for local use, or on Kubernetes through the separate openwhisk-deploy-kube repo. It has no AI-specific features.
Who it is for: Teams self-hosting an event-driven serverless platform on Docker or Kubernetes
Strengths
- Standalone mode starts the full stack with one Gradle command and opens a browser Playground
- Deploys on managed Kubernetes (AKS, EKS, IKS, GKE), Minikube or Docker for Mac
- Supports triggers, rules, packages and feeds for event-driven wiring, plus function composition
- Documented process for adding a runtime for a new language
Weaknesses
- Master moved to Apache Pekko in Oct 2025; upgrading requires new clusters and traffic cutover
- Latest tagged release is April 2024; a 3.x branch for the Pekko change is still pending
- Needs Docker, Java and Node.js locally; Kubernetes deploy lives in a separate repo
- Generic serverless platform with no LLM, agent or model-serving tooling
What it needs
- Needs Docker, Java, Node.js, Kubernetes (optional)
- port 3232
Quick answers
Is openwhisk open source?
Yes. Its code is on GitHub under the Apache-2.0 license.
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