head to head · open source
Cube vs flink-cdc
Cube has 21,147 GitHub stars, 2,179 forks, 1,185 open issues and last shipped yesterday. flink-cdc has 6,493 stars, 2,205 forks, 119 open issues and last shipped yesterday. Cube leads on adoption by 226% (21,147 vs 6,493 stars). Cube is written in Rust under a custom or non-standard licence; flink-cdc is written in Java under Apache-2.0. Cube has attracted 10% as many forks as stars, flink-cdc 34%. Cube 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.
← all 20902 open source comparisons
Side by side
| Cube | flink-cdc | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 21K | ★ 6.5K |
| License | Custom / other | Apache-2.0 |
| Written in | Rust | Java |
| Last push | 2026-11-02 | 2026-11-02 |
| Forks | ⑂ 2.2K | ⑂ 2.2K |
| Self-hosting | Yes | Yes |
| Data ownership | Your server | Your server |
pick Cube if
- You weight community size — 21K stars and counting
- You want the Custom / other license terms
- Your stack matches Rust
- You value the larger contributor base for long-term maintenance
pick flink-cdc if
- You want the flink-cdc feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the Apache-2.0 license terms
- Your stack matches Java
- You evaluated both and flink-cdc fits your workflow better
About Cube
Website • Docs • Examples • Blog • Slack • X Cube Core is the open source semantic layer. Define metrics, dimensions, joins, and access rules once in code, then expose them through SQL, REST, and GraphQL APIs to anything downstream — BI tools, custom applications, or AI agents. Cube Core is headless: it doesn't ship a UI, so you can build the analytics experience that fits your product. Cube Core works with all SQL data sources, including cloud data warehouses like Snowflake, Databricks, and BigQuery; query engines like Presto and Amazon Athena; and application databases like Postgres. It has a built in…
About flink-cdc
Flink CDC is a distributed data integration tool for real time data and batch data, built on top of Apache Flink. It prioritizes efficient end to end data integration and offers enhanced functionalities such as full database synchronization, sharding table synchronization, schema evolution and data transformation. API Layers Flink CDC provides three API layers for different usage scenarios: 1. YAML API (Pipeline API) The YAML API provides a declarative, zero code approach to define data pipelines. Users describe the source, sink, routing, transformation, and schema evolution rules in a YAML file and submit it…
read the full flink-cdc overview →
More in Data & Analytics
Related comparisons
More Data Engineering & Integration projects
Compare either of these against the rest of the Data Engineering & Integration field.
Frequently asked questions
Is Cube or flink-cdc more popular?
Cube has 21,147 GitHub stars and flink-cdc has 6,493. Cube has the larger community by that measure.
Are Cube and flink-cdc free?
Both are open source. Cube has no licence declared in this registry, and flink-cdc is licensed under Apache-2.0. Both are free to self-host.
What is the difference between Cube and flink-cdc?
Cube is written in Rust and flink-cdc in Java. The practical differences are community size, licence terms, language stack and release cadence — all compared in the table above.
Which should I choose, Cube or flink-cdc?
Choose Cube if you want the larger community (21,147 stars) or its Custom / other licence terms. Choose flink-cdc if its feature set, stack or Apache-2.0 licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.