head to head · open source
cubefs vs lakeFS
cubefs has 5,660 GitHub stars, 714 forks, 265 open issues and last shipped 4 days ago. lakeFS has 5,535 stars, 477 forks, 443 open issues and last shipped 5 days ago. cubefs leads on adoption by 2% (5,660 vs 5,535 stars). cubefs is written in Go under Apache-2.0; lakeFS is written in Go under Apache-2.0. cubefs has attracted 13% as many forks as stars, lakeFS 9%. cubefs 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
| cubefs | lakeFS | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 5.7K | ★ 5.5K |
| License | Apache-2.0 | Apache-2.0 |
| Written in | Go | Go |
| Last push | 2026-09-18 | 2026-09-17 |
| Forks | ⑂ 714 | ⑂ 477 |
| Self-hosting | Yes | Yes |
| Data ownership | Your server | Your server |
pick cubefs if
- You weight community size — 5.7K 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 lakeFS if
- You want the lakeFS 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 lakeFS fits your workflow better
About cubefs
CubeFS is an Apache 2.0, CNCF graduated cloud native distributed file and object storage system written in Go, built for teams that need POSIX, HDFS, S3, and REST access to a single storage layer across datacenters, private and hybrid clouds, and Kubernetes.
read the full cubefs overview →
About lakeFS
lakeFS is an open source data version control tool — commonly described as Git for data — that turns object storage into a versioned, Git like repository, and it is built for data engineers, analytics engineers, and data scientists who need repeatable, atomic, and auditable data lake operations.
read the full lakeFS overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is cubefs or lakeFS more popular?
cubefs has 5,660 GitHub stars and lakeFS has 5,535. cubefs has the larger community by that measure.
Are cubefs and lakeFS free?
Both are open source. cubefs is licensed under Apache-2.0 and lakeFS under Apache-2.0. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between cubefs and lakeFS?
cubefs is written in Go and lakeFS 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, cubefs or lakeFS?
Choose cubefs if you want the larger community (5,660 stars) or its Apache-2.0 licence terms. Choose lakeFS if its feature set, stack or Apache-2.0 licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.