head to head · open source
etcd vs flipper
etcd has 52,270 GitHub stars, 10,506 forks, 351 open issues and last shipped yesterday. flipper has 3,969 stars, 441 forks, 33 open issues and last shipped 3 days ago. etcd leads on adoption by 1,217% (52,270 vs 3,969 stars). etcd is written in Go under Apache-2.0; flipper is written in Ruby under MIT. etcd has attracted 20% as many forks as stars, flipper 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 | flipper | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 52K | ★ 4.0K |
| License | Apache-2.0 | MIT |
| Written in | Go | Ruby |
| Last push | 2026-09-18 | 2026-09-16 |
| Forks | ⑂ 11K | ⑂ 441 |
| 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 flipper if
- You want the flipper feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the MIT license terms
- Your stack matches Ruby
- You evaluated both and flipper 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 flipper
Flipper is an MIT licensed Ruby and Rails library that gives applications control over who has access to features, letting teams enable or disable functionality for everyone, specific actors, groups, a percentage of actors, or a percentage of time.
read the full flipper overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is etcd or flipper more popular?
etcd has 52,270 GitHub stars and flipper has 3,969. etcd has the larger community by that measure.
Are etcd and flipper free?
Both are open source. etcd is licensed under Apache-2.0 and flipper under MIT. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between etcd and flipper?
etcd is written in Go and flipper in Ruby. 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 flipper?
Choose etcd if you want the larger community (52,270 stars) or its Apache-2.0 licence terms. Choose flipper if its feature set, stack or MIT licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.