head to head · open source
etcd vs dbmate
etcd has 52,441 GitHub stars, 10,552 forks, 351 open issues and last shipped yesterday. dbmate has 7,514 stars, 387 forks, 34 open issues and last shipped 6 days ago. etcd leads on adoption by 598% (52,441 vs 7,514 stars). etcd is written in Go under Apache-2.0; dbmate is written in Go under MIT. etcd has attracted 20% as many forks as stars, dbmate 5%. etcd was the more recently maintained of the two, and both are self-hostable with no licence fee. The two share 2 topic tags (database, go), 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 | dbmate | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 52K | ★ 7.5K |
| License | Apache-2.0 | MIT |
| Written in | Go | Go |
| Last push | 2026-11-02 | 2026-10-28 |
| Forks | ⑂ 11K | ⑂ 387 |
| 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 dbmate if
- You want the dbmate feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the MIT license terms
- Your stack matches Go
- You evaluated both and dbmate 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 dbmate
Dbmate Dbmate is a database migration tool that will keep your database schema in sync across multiple developers and your production servers. It is a standalone command line tool that can be used with Go, Node.js, Python, Ruby, PHP, Rust, C++, or any other language or framework you are using to write database backed applications. This is especially helpful if you are writing multiple services in different languages, and want to maintain some sanity with consistent development tools. For a comparison between dbmate and other popular database schema migration tools, please see Alternatives. Table of Contents…
read the full dbmate overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is etcd or dbmate more popular?
etcd has 52,441 GitHub stars and dbmate has 7,514. etcd has the larger community by that measure.
Are etcd and dbmate free?
Both are open source. etcd is licensed under Apache-2.0 and dbmate under MIT. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between etcd and dbmate?
etcd is written in Go and dbmate 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 dbmate?
Choose etcd if you want the larger community (52,441 stars) or its Apache-2.0 licence terms. Choose dbmate if its feature set, stack or MIT licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.