head to head · open source
cubefs vs Zenko
cubefs has 5,668 GitHub stars, 715 forks, 265 open issues and last shipped today. Zenko has 673 stars, 92 forks, 13 open issues and last shipped 6 days ago. cubefs leads on adoption by 742% (5,668 vs 673 stars). cubefs is written in Go under Apache-2.0; Zenko is written in Gherkin under Apache-2.0. cubefs has attracted 13% as many forks as stars, Zenko 14%. cubefs was the more recently maintained of the two, and both are self-hostable with no licence fee. The two share 2 topic tags (hybrid-cloud, kubernetes), so they are genuine substitutes rather than adjacent tools.
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 | Zenko | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 5.7K | ★ 673 |
| License | Apache-2.0 | Apache-2.0 |
| Written in | Go | Gherkin |
| Last push | 2026-09-29 | 2026-09-23 |
| Forks | ⑂ 715 | ⑂ 92 |
| 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 Zenko if
- You want the Zenko feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the Apache-2.0 license terms
- Your stack matches Gherkin
- You evaluated both and Zenko 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 Zenko
Zenko is Scality's Apache 2.0 licensed open source multi cloud data controller, aimed at teams that want to keep control of data spread across local storage and public clouds behind a single unified namespace, access API, and search layer.
read the full Zenko overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is cubefs or Zenko more popular?
cubefs has 5,668 GitHub stars and Zenko has 673. cubefs has the larger community by that measure.
Are cubefs and Zenko free?
Both are open source. cubefs is licensed under Apache-2.0 and Zenko under Apache-2.0. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between cubefs and Zenko?
cubefs is written in Go and Zenko in Gherkin. 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 Zenko?
Choose cubefs if you want the larger community (5,668 stars) or its Apache-2.0 licence terms. Choose Zenko if its feature set, stack or Apache-2.0 licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.