head to head · open source
drawDB vs rocksdb
drawDB has 39,572 GitHub stars, 3,248 forks, 241 open issues and last shipped 5 days ago. rocksdb has 32,106 stars, 6,930 forks, 1,645 open issues and last shipped yesterday. drawDB leads on adoption by 23% (39,572 vs 32,106 stars). drawDB is written in JavaScript under AGPL-3.0; rocksdb is written in C++ under GPL-2.0. drawDB has attracted 8% as many forks as stars, rocksdb 22%. rocksdb was the more recently maintained of the two, and both are self-hostable with no licence fee. The two share 1 topic tag (database), 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
| drawDB | rocksdb | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 40K | ★ 32K |
| License | AGPL-3.0 | GPL-2.0 |
| Written in | JavaScript | C++ |
| Last push | 2026-09-13 | 2026-09-17 |
| Forks | ⑂ 3.2K | ⑂ 6.9K |
| Self-hosting | Yes | Yes |
| Data ownership | Your server | Your server |
pick drawDB if
- You weight community size — 40K stars and counting
- You want the AGPL-3.0 license terms
- Your stack matches JavaScript
- You value the larger contributor base for long-term maintenance
pick rocksdb if
- You want the rocksdb feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the GPL-2.0 license terms
- Your stack matches C++
- You evaluated both and rocksdb fits your workflow better
About drawDB
drawDB is a free, open source, browser based database entity relationship diagram (ERD) editor and SQL generator for developers, data modellers, and teams who need to design database schemas and turn them into SQL scripts without creating an account.
read the full drawDB overview →
About rocksdb
RocksDB is an embeddable, persistent key value store written in C++ and developed by the Facebook Database Engineering Team. It is a library rather than a standalone server, and it forms the core building block for a fast key value server. The project builds on earlier work on LevelDB by Sanjay Ghemawat and Jeff Dean, and it lives in the systems infrastructure and database ecosystem, carrying the topics database and storage engine. It has been public for roughly fourteen years and is dual licensed under GPLv2 and Apache 2.0, so a user may select either license at their option.
read the full rocksdb overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is drawDB or rocksdb more popular?
drawDB has 39,572 GitHub stars and rocksdb has 32,106. drawDB has the larger community by that measure.
Are drawDB and rocksdb free?
Both are open source. drawDB is licensed under AGPL-3.0 and rocksdb under GPL-2.0. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between drawDB and rocksdb?
drawDB is written in JavaScript and rocksdb in C++. The practical differences are community size, licence terms, language stack and release cadence — all compared in the table above.
Which should I choose, drawDB or rocksdb?
Choose drawDB if you want the larger community (39,572 stars) or its AGPL-3.0 licence terms. Choose rocksdb if its feature set, stack or GPL-2.0 licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.