head to head · open source
debezium vs flink-cdc
debezium has 13,129 GitHub stars, 3,042 forks, 131 open issues and last shipped yesterday. flink-cdc has 6,475 stars, 2,196 forks, 119 open issues and last shipped yesterday. debezium leads on adoption by 103% (13,129 vs 6,475 stars). debezium is written in Java under Apache-2.0; flink-cdc is written in Java under Apache-2.0. debezium has attracted 23% as many forks as stars, flink-cdc 34%. debezium was the more recently maintained of the two, and both are self-hostable with no licence fee. The two share 4 topic tags (cdc, change-data-capture, data-pipeline, kafka), 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
| debezium | flink-cdc | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 13K | ★ 6.5K |
| License | Apache-2.0 | Apache-2.0 |
| Written in | Java | Java |
| Last push | 2026-09-17 | 2026-09-17 |
| Forks | ⑂ 3.0K | ⑂ 2.2K |
| Self-hosting | Yes | Yes |
| Data ownership | Your server | Your server |
pick debezium if
- You weight community size — 13K stars and counting
- You want the Apache-2.0 license terms
- Your stack matches Java
- You value the larger contributor base for long-term maintenance
pick flink-cdc if
- You want the flink-cdc 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 flink-cdc fits your workflow better
About debezium
Debezium is an open source, low latency change data capture (CDC) platform that monitors databases and turns every row level change into an ordered event stream that applications consume, and it is built for Java teams already running Apache Kafka and Kafka Connect.
read the full debezium overview →
About flink-cdc
Flink CDC is an Apache 2.0 streaming data integration tool built on Apache Flink that moves real time and batch data between databases and downstream systems, and it is aimed at data engineers and platform teams who need change data capture pipelines without writing per source job code.
read the full flink-cdc overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is debezium or flink-cdc more popular?
debezium has 13,129 GitHub stars and flink-cdc has 6,475. debezium has the larger community by that measure.
Are debezium and flink-cdc free?
Both are open source. debezium is licensed under Apache-2.0 and flink-cdc under Apache-2.0. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between debezium and flink-cdc?
debezium is written in Java and flink-cdc 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, debezium or flink-cdc?
Choose debezium if you want the larger community (13,129 stars) or its Apache-2.0 licence terms. Choose flink-cdc if its feature set, stack or Apache-2.0 licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.