head to head · open source
dbx vs martin
dbx has 28,664 GitHub stars, 2,616 forks, 1,406 open issues and last shipped yesterday. martin has 4,040 stars, 412 forks, 52 open issues and last shipped yesterday. dbx leads on adoption by 610% (28,664 vs 4,040 stars). dbx is written in Rust under Apache-2.0; martin is written in Rust under Apache-2.0. dbx has attracted 9% as many forks as stars, martin 10%. dbx was the more recently maintained of the two, and both are self-hostable with no licence fee. The two share 1 topic tag (postgresql), 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
| dbx | martin | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 29K | ★ 4.0K |
| License | Apache-2.0 | Apache-2.0 |
| Written in | Rust | Rust |
| Last push | 2026-11-02 | 2026-11-02 |
| Forks | ⑂ 2.6K | ⑂ 412 |
| Self-hosting | Yes | Yes |
| Data ownership | Your server | Your server |
pick dbx if
- You weight community size — 29K 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 martin if
- You want the martin feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the Apache-2.0 license terms
- Your stack matches Rust
- You evaluated both and martin fits your workflow better
About dbx
90+ databases in 25 MB. Desktop, Docker, CLI, built in AI assistant, and MCP Server. <img src="
About martin
Martin is a tile server and a set of tools able to generate vector tiles on the fly from large PostgreSQL databases and GeoJSON files, and serve tiles from PMTiles and MBTiles files. It can also serve vector tiles from GeoParquet files via DuckDB (unstable). Martin optimizes for speed and heavy traffic, and is written in Rust. Features Serve vector tiles from PostGIS databases, automatically discovering compatible tables and functions PMTile, both local files and over HTTP MBTile files GeoJSON files, converted to vector tiles on the fly GeoParquet files via DuckDB, converted to vector tiles on the fly (unstable)…
read the full martin overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is dbx or martin more popular?
dbx has 28,664 GitHub stars and martin has 4,040. dbx has the larger community by that measure.
Are dbx and martin free?
Both are open source. dbx is licensed under Apache-2.0 and martin under Apache-2.0. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between dbx and martin?
dbx is written in Rust and martin in Rust. The practical differences are community size, licence terms, language stack and release cadence — all compared in the table above.
Which should I choose, dbx or martin?
Choose dbx if you want the larger community (28,664 stars) or its Apache-2.0 licence terms. Choose martin if its feature set, stack or Apache-2.0 licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.