head to head · open source
etcd vs miniredis
etcd has 52,270 GitHub stars, 10,506 forks, 351 open issues and last shipped yesterday. miniredis has 3,620 stars, 257 forks, 6 open issues and last shipped 3 days ago. etcd leads on adoption by 1,344% (52,270 vs 3,620 stars). etcd is written in Go under Apache-2.0; miniredis is written in Go under MIT. etcd has attracted 20% as many forks as stars, miniredis 7%. etcd was the more recently maintained of the two, and both are self-hostable with no licence fee. The two share 1 topic tag (go), 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 | miniredis | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 52K | ★ 3.6K |
| License | Apache-2.0 | MIT |
| Written in | Go | Go |
| Last push | 2026-09-18 | 2026-09-16 |
| Forks | ⑂ 11K | ⑂ 257 |
| 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 miniredis if
- You want the miniredis feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the MIT license terms
- Your stack matches Go
- You evaluated both and miniredis 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 miniredis
miniredis is a pure Go in memory implementation of parts of the Redis server that speaks a real TCP interface inside a Go unittest process, built for Go developers who need to exercise Redis backed code without running an external Redis instance.
read the full miniredis overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is etcd or miniredis more popular?
etcd has 52,270 GitHub stars and miniredis has 3,620. etcd has the larger community by that measure.
Are etcd and miniredis free?
Both are open source. etcd is licensed under Apache-2.0 and miniredis under MIT. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between etcd and miniredis?
etcd is written in Go and miniredis in Go. 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 miniredis?
Choose etcd if you want the larger community (52,270 stars) or its Apache-2.0 licence terms. Choose miniredis if its feature set, stack or MIT licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.