head to head · open source
dtm vs database-lab-engine
dtm has 10,919 GitHub stars, 997 forks, 87 open issues and last shipped 9 months ago. database-lab-engine has 2,719 stars, 85 forks, 23 open issues and last shipped 3 days ago. dtm leads on adoption by 302% (10,919 vs 2,719 stars). dtm is written in Go under BSD-3-Clause; database-lab-engine is written in Go under Apache-2.0. dtm has attracted 9% as many forks as stars, database-lab-engine 3%. database-lab-engine 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
| dtm | database-lab-engine | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 11K | ★ 2.7K |
| License | BSD-3-Clause | Apache-2.0 |
| Written in | Go | Go |
| Last push | 2026-01-03 | 2026-09-17 |
| Forks | ⑂ 997 | ⑂ 85 |
| Self-hosting | Yes | Yes |
| Data ownership | Your server | Your server |
pick dtm if
- You weight community size — 11K stars and counting
- You want the BSD-3-Clause license terms
- Your stack matches Go
- You value the larger contributor base for long-term maintenance
pick database-lab-engine if
- You want the database-lab-engine feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the Apache-2.0 license terms
- Your stack matches Go
- You evaluated both and database-lab-engine fits your workflow better
About dtm
DTM is a distributed transaction framework that provides cross service eventual data consistency for microservices, with saga, TCC, XA, 2 phase message, outbox, and workflow patterns plus SDKs for Go, Java, PHP, C , Python, and Node.js.
About database-lab-engine
Database Lab Engine is an open source Go project that provides database branching and thin cloning for PostgreSQL environments. It lives in the infrastructure and operations ecosystem, around database orchestration, CI/CD, and schema migration workflows. The project lets teams create many PostgreSQL environments from existing databases without copying all data for each environment.
read the full database-lab-engine overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is dtm or database-lab-engine more popular?
dtm has 10,919 GitHub stars and database-lab-engine has 2,719. dtm has the larger community by that measure.
Are dtm and database-lab-engine free?
Both are open source. dtm is licensed under BSD-3-Clause and database-lab-engine under Apache-2.0. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between dtm and database-lab-engine?
dtm is written in Go and database-lab-engine in Go. The practical differences are community size, licence terms, language stack and release cadence — all compared in the table above.
Which should I choose, dtm or database-lab-engine?
Choose dtm if you want the larger community (10,919 stars) or its BSD-3-Clause licence terms. Choose database-lab-engine if its feature set, stack or Apache-2.0 licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.