head to head · open source
Apache Pinot vs arc
Apache Pinot has 6,139 GitHub stars, 1,509 forks, 1,403 open issues and last shipped yesterday. arc has 676 stars, 52 forks, 57 open issues and last shipped 2 days ago. Apache Pinot leads on adoption by 808% (6,139 vs 676 stars). Apache Pinot is written in Java under Apache-2.0; arc is written in Go under AGPL-3.0. Apache Pinot has attracted 25% as many forks as stars, arc 8%. Apache Pinot was the more recently maintained of the two, and both are self-hostable with no licence fee.
Two open source projects, one decision. Both are free and self-hostable — the differences are community size, license terms, language stack and release pace.
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Side by side
| Apache Pinot | arc | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 6.1K | ★ 676 |
| License | Apache-2.0 | AGPL-3.0 |
| Written in | Java | Go |
| Last push | 2026-09-18 | 2026-09-17 |
| Forks | ⑂ 1.5K | ⑂ 52 |
| Self-hosting | Yes | Yes |
| Data ownership | Your server | Your server |
pick Apache Pinot if
- You weight community size — 6.1K stars and counting
- You want the Apache-2.0 license terms
- Your stack matches Java
- You value the larger contributor base for long-term maintenance
pick arc if
- You want the arc feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the AGPL-3.0 license terms
- Your stack matches Go
- You evaluated both and arc fits your workflow better
About Apache Pinot
Apache Pinot is a real time distributed OLAP datastore built to deliver scalable real time analytics at low latency. It lives in the Java ecosystem, is licensed under Apache 2.0, and was originally built by engineers at LinkedIn and Uber. The project ingests from batch data sources such as Hadoop HDFS, Amazon S3, Azure ADLS, and Google Cloud Storage, as well as from stream data sources such as Apache Kafka. It is designed to scale up and out with no upper bound, and its performance stays constant based on the size of the cluster and an expected query per second threshold.
read the full Apache Pinot overview →
About arc
Arc is an open, SQL native time series database, released under AGPL 3.0, for engineers and platform teams who need to keep full resolution telemetry from machines, services, vehicles, and devices and still query recent and historical data together in one system.
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Frequently asked questions
Is Apache Pinot or arc more popular?
Apache Pinot has 6,139 GitHub stars and arc has 676. Apache Pinot has the larger community by that measure.
Are Apache Pinot and arc free?
Both are open source. Apache Pinot is licensed under Apache-2.0 and arc under AGPL-3.0. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between Apache Pinot and arc?
Apache Pinot is written in Java and arc in Go. The practical differences are community size, licence terms, language stack and release cadence — all compared in the table above.
Which should I choose, Apache Pinot or arc?
Choose Apache Pinot if you want the larger community (6,139 stars) or its Apache-2.0 licence terms. Choose arc if its feature set, stack or AGPL-3.0 licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.