head to head · open source
etcd vs Medoo
etcd has 52,270 GitHub stars, 10,506 forks, 351 open issues and last shipped yesterday. Medoo has 4,950 stars, 1,128 forks, 50 open issues and last shipped 28 days ago. etcd leads on adoption by 956% (52,270 vs 4,950 stars). etcd is written in Go under Apache-2.0; Medoo is written in PHP under MIT. etcd has attracted 20% as many forks as stars, Medoo 23%. etcd 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 | Medoo | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 52K | ★ 5.0K |
| License | Apache-2.0 | MIT |
| Written in | Go | PHP |
| Last push | 2026-09-18 | 2026-08-22 |
| Forks | ⑂ 11K | ⑂ 1.1K |
| 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 Medoo if
- You want the Medoo feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the MIT license terms
- Your stack matches PHP
- You evaluated both and Medoo 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 Medoo
Medoo is a lightweight, MIT licensed PHP database framework, shipped as a single file Composer package, that gives developers one clean API for MySQL, MariaDB, PostgreSQL, SQLite, MSSQL, Oracle, Sybase and other engines over PDO — and it is built for PHP developers who want fast, readable database work without adopting a full ORM.
read the full Medoo overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is etcd or Medoo more popular?
etcd has 52,270 GitHub stars and Medoo has 4,950. etcd has the larger community by that measure.
Are etcd and Medoo free?
Both are open source. etcd is licensed under Apache-2.0 and Medoo under MIT. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between etcd and Medoo?
etcd is written in Go and Medoo in PHP. 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 Medoo?
Choose etcd if you want the larger community (52,270 stars) or its Apache-2.0 licence terms. Choose Medoo if its feature set, stack or MIT licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.