head to head · open source
dbt vs trino
dbt has 14,118 GitHub stars, 2,661 forks, 1,534 open issues and last shipped yesterday. trino has 13,448 stars, 3,851 forks, 2,764 open issues and last shipped yesterday. dbt leads on adoption by 5% (14,118 vs 13,448 stars). dbt is written in Rust under Apache-2.0; trino is written in Java under Apache-2.0. dbt has attracted 19% as many forks as stars, trino 29%. trino was the more recently maintained of the two, and both are self-hostable with no licence fee. The two share 1 topic tag (analytics), 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
| dbt | trino | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 14K | ★ 13K |
| License | Apache-2.0 | Apache-2.0 |
| Written in | Rust | Java |
| Last push | 2026-11-04 | 2026-11-04 |
| Forks | ⑂ 2.7K | ⑂ 3.9K |
| Self-hosting | Yes | Yes |
| Data ownership | Your server | Your server |
pick dbt if
- You weight community size — 14K stars and counting
- You want the Apache-2.0 license terms
- Your stack matches Rust
- You value the larger contributor base for long-term maintenance
pick trino if
- You want the trino 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 trino fits your workflow better
About dbt
[!WARNING] dbt v1 development has moved to the 1.latest branch. The main branch now contains all the Apache 2.0 source code of dbt v2.0 — a ground up rewrite of dbt in Rust. If you're looking for the v1 Python implementation of the dbt framework, switch to 1.latest . dbt enables data analysts and engineers to transform their data using the same practices that software engineers use to build applications. About dbt v2.0 🚧 dbt v2.0 is in beta. Behavior, APIs, and on disk formats may change before the stable release. dbt v2.0 is engineered for performance at scale. It parses, compiles, and runs projects in a…
About trino
Trino is a fast distributed SQL query engine for big data analytics. See the User Manual for deployment instructions and end user documentation. Development See DEVELOPMENT for information about development and release process, code style and guidelines for implementors of Trino plugins. See CONTRIBUTING for contribution requirements. Security See the project security policy for information about reporting vulnerabilities. Trino supports reproducible builds as of version 449. Build requirements Mac OS X or Linux Note that some npm packages used to build the web UI are only available for x86 architectures, so if…
read the full trino overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is dbt or trino more popular?
dbt has 14,118 GitHub stars and trino has 13,448. dbt has the larger community by that measure.
Are dbt and trino free?
Both are open source. dbt is licensed under Apache-2.0 and trino under Apache-2.0. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between dbt and trino?
dbt is written in Rust and trino 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, dbt or trino?
Choose dbt if you want the larger community (14,118 stars) or its Apache-2.0 licence terms. Choose trino if its feature set, stack or Apache-2.0 licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.