head to head · open source
Cube vs whodb
Cube has 20,857 GitHub stars, 2,138 forks, 1,185 open issues and last shipped yesterday. whodb has 5,031 stars, 238 forks, 42 open issues and last shipped yesterday. Cube leads on adoption by 315% (20,857 vs 5,031 stars). Cube is written in Rust under a custom or non-standard licence; whodb is written in Go under Apache-2.0. Cube has attracted 10% as many forks as stars, whodb 5%. 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.
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Side by side
| Cube | whodb | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 21K | ★ 5.0K |
| License | Custom / other | Apache-2.0 |
| Written in | Rust | Go |
| Last push | 2026-09-17 | 2026-09-17 |
| Forks | ⑂ 2.1K | ⑂ 238 |
| 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 whodb if
- You want the whodb feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the Apache-2.0 license terms
- Your stack matches Go
- You evaluated both and whodb fits your workflow better
About Cube
Cube Core is an open source semantic layer for AI, BI, and embedded analytics. It lives in the data analytics and data engineering ecosystem for SQL warehouses, BI tools, applications, and AI agents. It lets teams define metrics, dimensions, joins, and access rules once in code, then expose them through SQL, REST, and GraphQL APIs. It is headless and ships no user interface.
About whodb
WhoDB is an Apache 2.0, Go based open source data workspace that gives users one place to explore databases, edit data, run queries, and understand how a schema fits together. It runs in the browser, is available as a desktop application, and also provides a terminal CLI, so it fits the open source data engineering and integration ecosystem for internal tools, data platforms, database management, data governance, data integration, data pipelines, data catalogs, data lineage, and ER diagrams.
read the full whodb overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is Cube or whodb more popular?
Cube has 20,857 GitHub stars and whodb has 5,031. Cube has the larger community by that measure.
Are Cube and whodb free?
Both are open source. Cube has no licence declared in this registry, and whodb is licensed under Apache-2.0. Both are free to self-host.
What is the difference between Cube and whodb?
Cube is written in Rust and whodb 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, Cube or whodb?
Choose Cube if you want the larger community (20,857 stars) or its Custom / other licence terms. Choose whodb if its feature set, stack or Apache-2.0 licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.