head to head · open source
etcd vs GreptimeDB
etcd has 52,270 GitHub stars, 10,504 forks, 351 open issues and last shipped yesterday. GreptimeDB has 6,680 stars, 543 forks, 264 open issues and last shipped yesterday. etcd leads on adoption by 682% (52,270 vs 6,680 stars). etcd is written in Go under Apache-2.0; GreptimeDB is written in Rust under Apache-2.0. etcd has attracted 20% as many forks as stars, GreptimeDB 8%. etcd was the more recently maintained of the two, and both are self-hostable with no licence fee. The two share 1 topic tag (distributed-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 | GreptimeDB | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 52K | ★ 6.7K |
| License | Apache-2.0 | Apache-2.0 |
| Written in | Go | Rust |
| Last push | 2026-09-17 | 2026-09-17 |
| Forks | ⑂ 11K | ⑂ 543 |
| 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 GreptimeDB if
- You want the GreptimeDB feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the Apache-2.0 license terms
- Your stack matches Rust
- You evaluated both and GreptimeDB 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 GreptimeDB
GreptimeDB is an open source observability database built on a single columnar engine that stores metrics, logs, and traces together. It lives in the cloud native infrastructure and operations ecosystem, written in Rust and licensed under Apache 2.0. All three signal types share one table model composed of tags, a timestamp, and fields, so when signals carry common identifiers such as service, host, or trace ID, they can be correlated in SQL without moving data between separate databases. Compute and storage are disaggregated: object storage holds the data while memory and local disk caches keep recent and freque…
read the full GreptimeDB overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is etcd or GreptimeDB more popular?
etcd has 52,270 GitHub stars and GreptimeDB has 6,680. etcd has the larger community by that measure.
Are etcd and GreptimeDB free?
Both are open source. etcd is licensed under Apache-2.0 and GreptimeDB under Apache-2.0. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between etcd and GreptimeDB?
etcd is written in Go and GreptimeDB in Rust. 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 GreptimeDB?
Choose etcd if you want the larger community (52,270 stars) or its Apache-2.0 licence terms. Choose GreptimeDB if its feature set, stack or Apache-2.0 licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.