head to head · open source
debezium vs realtime
debezium has 13,129 GitHub stars, 3,042 forks, 131 open issues and last shipped yesterday. realtime has 7,634 stars, 467 forks, 78 open issues and last shipped yesterday. debezium leads on adoption by 72% (13,129 vs 7,634 stars). debezium is written in Java under Apache-2.0; realtime is written in Elixir under Apache-2.0. debezium has attracted 23% as many forks as stars, realtime 6%. realtime was the more recently maintained of the two, and both are self-hostable with no licence fee. The two share 2 topic tags (cdc, change-data-capture), 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 | realtime | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 13K | ★ 7.6K |
| License | Apache-2.0 | Apache-2.0 |
| Written in | Java | Elixir |
| Last push | 2026-09-17 | 2026-09-17 |
| Forks | ⑂ 3.0K | ⑂ 467 |
| 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 realtime if
- You want the realtime feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the Apache-2.0 license terms
- Your stack matches Elixir
- You evaluated both and realtime 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 realtime
Supabase Realtime is a server built with Elixir on the Phoenix Framework that pushes three kinds of realtime functionality to browser and server clients over WebSockets. It lives in the Supabase ecosystem, where it acts as the realtime layer alongside Postgres, and it is distributed as open source under the Apache 2.0 license. The project has been public for roughly seven years, carries 7,632 stars and 463 forks, and its topic list places it in the company of change data capture, CRDT, distributed systems, pubsub, and PostgreSQL tooling.
read the full realtime overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is debezium or realtime more popular?
debezium has 13,129 GitHub stars and realtime has 7,634. debezium has the larger community by that measure.
Are debezium and realtime free?
Both are open source. debezium is licensed under Apache-2.0 and realtime under Apache-2.0. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between debezium and realtime?
debezium is written in Java and realtime in Elixir. 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 realtime?
Choose debezium if you want the larger community (13,129 stars) or its Apache-2.0 licence terms. Choose realtime if its feature set, stack or Apache-2.0 licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.