head to head · open source
etcd vs kairosdb
etcd has 52,270 GitHub stars, 10,504 forks, 351 open issues and last shipped yesterday. kairosdb has 1,761 stars, 340 forks, 141 open issues and last shipped 7 months ago. etcd leads on adoption by 2,868% (52,270 vs 1,761 stars). etcd is written in Go under Apache-2.0; kairosdb is written in Java under Apache-2.0. etcd has attracted 20% as many forks as stars, kairosdb 19%. 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 | kairosdb | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 52K | ★ 1.8K |
| License | Apache-2.0 | Apache-2.0 |
| Written in | Go | Java |
| Last push | 2026-09-17 | 2026-03-05 |
| Forks | ⑂ 11K | ⑂ 340 |
| 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 kairosdb if
- You want the kairosdb feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the Apache-2.0 license terms
- Your stack matches Java
- You evaluated both and kairosdb 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 kairosdb
KairosDB is fast distributed scalable time series database. It is written in Java. It is built on top of Cassandra. It sits in Infrastructure & Operations / Databases. Its topics are java, kairosdb, metrics, timeseries, timeseries database. It uses Apache 2.0 license. Its tagline and GitHub description both say fast scalable time series database. It has 1761 stars, 340 forks, 141 open issues, and no contributor count. Its repo age is 14 years. Its last push is 2026 03 05T22:27:54Z.
read the full kairosdb overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is etcd or kairosdb more popular?
etcd has 52,270 GitHub stars and kairosdb has 1,761. etcd has the larger community by that measure.
Are etcd and kairosdb free?
Both are open source. etcd is licensed under Apache-2.0 and kairosdb under Apache-2.0. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between etcd and kairosdb?
etcd is written in Go and kairosdb in Java. 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 kairosdb?
Choose etcd if you want the larger community (52,270 stars) or its Apache-2.0 licence terms. Choose kairosdb if its feature set, stack or Apache-2.0 licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.