head to head · open source
etcd vs badger
etcd has 52,270 GitHub stars, 10,506 forks, 351 open issues and last shipped today. badger has 15,761 stars, 1,318 forks, 69 open issues and last shipped 10 days ago. etcd leads on adoption by 232% (52,270 vs 15,761 stars). etcd is written in Go under Apache-2.0; badger is written in Go under Apache-2.0. etcd has attracted 20% as many forks as stars, badger 8%. etcd was the more recently maintained of the two, and both are self-hostable with no licence fee. The two share 3 topic tags (database, go, key-value), 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
| etcd | badger | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 52K | ★ 16K |
| License | Apache-2.0 | Apache-2.0 |
| Written in | Go | Go |
| Last push | 2026-09-18 | 2026-09-08 |
| Forks | ⑂ 11K | ⑂ 1.3K |
| 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 badger if
- You want the badger 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 badger 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 badger
BadgerDB is an embeddable, persistent, fast key value database written in pure Go, aimed at Go developers who need local high performance storage inside their own applications rather than a separate database server.
read the full badger overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is etcd or badger more popular?
etcd has 52,270 GitHub stars and badger has 15,761. etcd has the larger community by that measure.
Are etcd and badger free?
Both are open source. etcd is licensed under Apache-2.0 and badger under Apache-2.0. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between etcd and badger?
etcd is written in Go and badger 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, etcd or badger?
Choose etcd if you want the larger community (52,270 stars) or its Apache-2.0 licence terms. Choose badger if its feature set, stack or Apache-2.0 licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.