head to head · open source
etcd vs age
etcd has 52,270 GitHub stars, 10,504 forks, 351 open issues and last shipped yesterday. age has 4,826 stars, 523 forks, 249 open issues and last shipped 4 days ago. etcd leads on adoption by 983% (52,270 vs 4,826 stars). etcd is written in Go under Apache-2.0; age is written in C under Apache-2.0. etcd has attracted 20% as many forks as stars, age 11%. etcd was the more recently maintained of the two, and both are self-hostable with no licence fee.
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
| etcd | age | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 52K | ★ 4.8K |
| License | Apache-2.0 | Apache-2.0 |
| Written in | Go | C |
| Last push | 2026-09-17 | 2026-09-14 |
| Forks | ⑂ 11K | ⑂ 523 |
| Self-hosting | Yes | Yes |
| Data ownership | Your server | Your server |
pick etcd if
- You weight community size — 52K stars and counting
- You want the Apache-2.0 license terms
- Your stack matches Go
- You value the larger contributor base for long-term maintenance
pick age if
- You want the age feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the Apache-2.0 license terms
- Your stack matches C
- You evaluated both and age fits your workflow better
About etcd
etcd is an Apache 2.0 licensed, Go written distributed key value store that holds the most critical data of a distributed system in a Raft replicated log, aimed at the platform and infrastructure engineers who must keep that control plane data consistent and available.
About age
Apache AGE is an extension for PostgreSQL that adds a graph database to an existing relational database. AGE stands for A Graph Extension, and the project is inspired by Bitnine's AgensGraph, a multi model database fork of PostgreSQL. It lives in the PostgreSQL ecosystem and is written in C under the Apache 2.0 license. The core principle is a single storage layer that handles both the relational and the graph data model, so users can write standard ANSI SQL alongside openCypher, one of the most widely used graph query languages.
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Frequently asked questions
Is etcd or age more popular?
etcd has 52,270 GitHub stars and age has 4,826. etcd has the larger community by that measure.
Are etcd and age free?
Both are open source. etcd is licensed under Apache-2.0 and age under Apache-2.0. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between etcd and age?
etcd is written in Go and age 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, etcd or age?
Choose etcd if you want the larger community (52,270 stars) or its Apache-2.0 licence terms. Choose age if its feature set, stack or Apache-2.0 licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.