head to head · open source
etcd vs efcore
etcd has 52,270 GitHub stars, 10,506 forks, 351 open issues and last shipped today. efcore has 14,790 stars, 3,418 forks, 2,343 open issues and last shipped today. etcd leads on adoption by 253% (52,270 vs 14,790 stars). etcd is written in Go under Apache-2.0; efcore is written in C# under MIT. etcd has attracted 20% as many forks as stars, efcore 23%. efcore 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
| etcd | efcore | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 52K | ★ 15K |
| License | Apache-2.0 | MIT |
| Written in | Go | C# |
| Last push | 2026-09-18 | 2026-09-18 |
| Forks | ⑂ 11K | ⑂ 3.4K |
| 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 efcore if
- You want the efcore feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the MIT license terms
- Your stack matches C#
- You evaluated both and efcore 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 efcore
EF Core is a modern object database mapper for .NET, maintained by Microsoft under the MIT License as a .NET Foundation project, and it is intended for .NET developers who want to work with relational and non relational databases through LINQ queries, change tracking, updates, and schema migrations instead of hand written data access code.
read the full efcore overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is etcd or efcore more popular?
etcd has 52,270 GitHub stars and efcore has 14,790. etcd has the larger community by that measure.
Are etcd and efcore free?
Both are open source. etcd is licensed under Apache-2.0 and efcore under MIT. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between etcd and efcore?
etcd is written in Go and efcore 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 efcore?
Choose etcd if you want the larger community (52,270 stars) or its Apache-2.0 licence terms. Choose efcore if its feature set, stack or MIT licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.