head to head · open source
etcd vs badger
etcd has 52,441 GitHub stars, 10,552 forks, 351 open issues and last shipped yesterday. badger has 15,797 stars, 1,341 forks, 69 open issues and last shipped 14 days ago. etcd leads on adoption by 232% (52,441 vs 15,797 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.
← all 20902 open source comparisons
Side by side
| etcd | badger | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 52K | ★ 16K |
| License | Apache-2.0 | Apache-2.0 |
| Written in | Go | Go |
| Last push | 2026-11-02 | 2026-10-20 |
| 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 Note : The main branch may be in an unstable or even broken state during development. For stable versions, see [releases][github release]. etcd is a distributed reliable key value store for the most critical data of a distributed system, with a focus on being: Simple : well defined, user facing API (gRPC) Secure : automatic TLS with optional client cert authentication Fast : benchmarked 10,000 writes/sec Reliable : properly distributed using Raft etcd is written in Go and uses the [Raft][] consensus algorithm to manage a highly available replicated log. etcd is used in production by many companies, and the…
About badger
BadgerDB BadgerDB is an embeddable, persistent and fast key value (KV) database written in pure Go. It is the underlying database for Dgraph, a fast, distributed graph database. It's meant to be a performant alternative to non Go based key value stores like RocksDB. Project Status Badger is stable and is being used to serve data sets worth hundreds of terabytes. Badger supports concurrent ACID transactions with serializable snapshot isolation (SSI) guarantees. A Jepsen style bank test runs nightly for 8h, with race flag and ensures the maintenance of transactional guarantees. Badger has also been tested to work…
read the full badger overview →
More in Infrastructure & Operations
Related comparisons
More Databases projects
Compare either of these against the rest of the Databases field.
Frequently asked questions
Is etcd or badger more popular?
etcd has 52,441 GitHub stars and badger has 15,797. 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 (52,441 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.