# apache/pekko

Build highly concurrent, distributed, and resilient message-driven applications using Java/Scala

Repository: https://github.com/apache/pekko
Canonical: https://ross.abutalabs.com/products/pekko
Homepage: https://pekko.apache.org/
Language: Scala
License: Apache-2.0
License Family: permissive
Topics: actor-model, cloud-native, concurrency, distributed-actors, distributed-systems, high-performance, pekko, reactive, streaming, message-driven
Last push: 2026-08-25T15:50:00+00:00

## Health v2 (maintenance only)
Score: 77/100 (v2, computed 2026-09-02T17:46:02.011165+00:00)
- activity 99, release rhythm 35, longevity 100
- inputs: {"age_days": 1402, "days_push": 8, "days_rel": null, "gap_med": null, "n_releases_24m": 0}
- flags: no_releases
- formula: round(0.45*activity + 0.35*rhythm + 0.20*longevity); archived -> min(score, 10)

## Adoption (not part of the score)
Stars 1629, forks 211 (observed 2026-08-28T04:05:13.895924+00:00)

## What it is
Apache Pekko is an open-source JVM framework for building concurrent, distributed, and resilient message-driven applications using the Actor Model, with APIs for Java and Scala. It is an Apache-2.0-licensed fork of Akka 2.6.x and includes modules for persistence, streams, HTTP, gRPC, cluster sharding, and connectors such as Kafka.

## Use cases
- build highly concurrent distributed applications on the JVM
- implement actor-based message-driven systems in Java or Scala
- run clustered applications with sharding and distributed data
- build event-sourced persistent services
- stream and process data reactively with backpressure
- replace Akka after its license change to BSL
- expose HTTP and gRPC APIs from actor systems

## When to choose
- you need a permissive Apache-2.0 alternative to Akka
- you are building resilient, elastic distributed systems on the JVM
- you want actor-model concurrency with persistence, clustering, and streaming in one toolkit
- you need Java and Scala APIs for cluster sharding or Kafka integration

## When to avoid
- you prefer lightweight async models like virtual threads or coroutines over the actor model
- your project is not on the JVM
- you need Windows-first development support, which has reported build issues
- you want a framework with a larger commercial ecosystem than the fork currently has

## Facets
- artifact type: framework
- maturity: active
- function: concurrency, message-queue, streaming, http-server, rpc, web-framework, workflow-automation
- domain: microservices, backend, developer-tools
- platform: jvm, cross-platform
- tags: actor-model, akka-fork, cluster-sharding, event-sourcing, reactive-streams, message-driven, resilience, grpc, kafka-connectors, real-time, docker, kubernetes

## Member repositories
- apache/pekko (main) score 77

## Provenance
- Observed fields: from GitHub, fetched 2026-08-28T04:05:13.895924+00:00.
- Health v2: computed from the inputs above; adoption is never an input.
- Inferred fields (summary, facets, guidance): AI-extracted, prompt v1, taxonomy v1, on 2026-08-30T03:48:16.378748+00:00, confidence not recorded.
  - readme: https://github.com/apache/pekko (fetched 2026-08-28T04:05:13.895924+00:00, sha a916ea13f14d)
  - homepage: https://pekko.apache.org/ (fetched 2026-08-29T11:20:51.278558+00:00, sha b588d71a68bf)
- Data as of 2026-08-30T08:39:29.467469+00:00.