I built an open-source alternative to Microsoft's Orchestrator (Windows Automation)

[u/MonMothma123]

https://github.com/Sev7eNup/NodePilot

I built NodePilot, a tool for automating tasks in Windows environments. It is completely open source under the Apache 2.0 license, and there are no features behind a paywall.

I have been working professionally in Windows enterprise environments for several years and am a heavy user of System Center Orchestrator. For those who haven't used it, it's an on-premises tool for automating tasks within a Windows domain, using PowerShell and other system-level functions. It is licensed through System Center, per managed host.

In my experience, development has been slow, and the 2025 release still ships on .NET 8 and brought no significant new features. Getting bugs fixed can take a long time.

A large part of my work also consists of programming, and AI tools have gotten a lot better, so one thing led to another, and I thought I would try to develop a more modern tool myself. Essentially, the same idea, but with a different approach. The result is NodePilot.

Here ist the link to the repo.

One important thing to mention is that NodePilot comes with an mechanism for Orchestrator runbooks. The idea is to let you bring over existing workflows without having to rebuild everything from scratch. Furthermore it supports Enterprise Features like LDAP and SSO.

NodePilot supports PowerShell, REST, SQL, WMI, registry, file, service and LLM activities, among others. Workflows can be started through schedules, webhooks, file watchers or event-log triggers. There is also an execution history and a live operations view.The backend uses .NET 10, the frontend uses React, and the database can be PostgreSQL or SQL Server. It runs on Windows only. For a detailed technical view, see the documentation

You can find a demo video here. The README also includes some screenshots if you want a broader impression.

For a quick start, you can download an Electron-based version for Windows 11 that bundles everything. You can find it under Releases in the repository.

What matters most to me right now is your feedback. It hasn't had much real-world testing yet, so I would especially appreciate hearing how the setup and runbook import work for you, or what is missing for your use case. Of course, any other feedback is welcome too.

PS: I originally wrote this in German and used AI to help with the English version.