head to head · open source
cayley vs Bytebase
cayley has 15,067 GitHub stars, 1,234 forks, 93 open issues and last shipped 2 months ago. Bytebase has 14,671 stars, 1,006 forks, 167 open issues and last shipped yesterday. cayley leads on adoption by 3% (15,067 vs 14,671 stars). cayley is written in Go under Apache-2.0; Bytebase is written in Go under a custom or non-standard licence. cayley has attracted 8% as many forks as stars, Bytebase 7%. Bytebase 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
| cayley | Bytebase | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 15K | ★ 15K |
| License | Apache-2.0 | Custom / other |
| Written in | Go | Go |
| Last push | 2026-08-27 | 2026-11-02 |
| Forks | ⑂ 1.2K | ⑂ 1.0K |
| Self-hosting | Yes | Yes |
| Data ownership | Your server | Your server |
pick cayley if
- You weight community size — 15K stars and counting
- You want the Apache-2.0 license terms
- Your stack matches Go
- You value the larger contributor base for long-term maintenance
pick Bytebase if
- You want the Bytebase feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the Custom / other license terms
- Your stack matches Go
- You evaluated both and Bytebase fits your workflow better
About cayley
Cayley is an open source database for Linked Data. It is inspired by the graph database behind Google's Knowledge Graph (formerly Freebase)). Documentation Features Built in query editor, visualizer and REPL Multiple query languages: Gizmo: query language inspired by Gremlin GraphQL inspired query language MQL: simplified version for Freebase) fans Modular: easy to connect to your favorite programming languages and back end stores Production ready: well tested and used by various companies for their production workloads Fast: optimized specifically for usage in applications Performance Rough performance testing…
read the full cayley overview →
About Bytebase
⚙️ Install • 📚 Docs • 🙋♀️ Book Demo What is Bytebase? Bytebase is the open source database governance platform. It acts as a single control plane between your users — humans and AI agents — and your databases, governing change management, access control, and compliance so every change and query is reviewed, controlled, and recorded. It replaces the disparate tools stitched across migration scripts, SQL clients, and ticketing systems, unifying database operations in a single platform. Supported Databases and Integrations Bytebase supports PostgreSQL, MySQL, SQL Server, Oracle, MongoDB, Redis, MariaDB, TiDB…
read the full Bytebase overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is cayley or Bytebase more popular?
cayley has 15,067 GitHub stars and Bytebase has 14,671. cayley has the larger community by that measure.
Are cayley and Bytebase free?
Both are open source. cayley is licensed under Apache-2.0, and Bytebase has no licence declared in this registry. Both are free to self-host.
What is the difference between cayley and Bytebase?
cayley is written in Go and Bytebase 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, cayley or Bytebase?
Choose cayley if you want the larger community (15,067 stars) or its Apache-2.0 licence terms. Choose Bytebase if its feature set, stack or Custom / other licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.