head to head · open source
etcd vs miniredis
etcd has 52,439 GitHub stars, 10,551 forks, 351 open issues and last shipped 2 days ago. miniredis has 3,635 stars, 268 forks, 6 open issues and last shipped 6 days ago. etcd leads on adoption by 1,343% (52,439 vs 3,635 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 | 2026-11-01 | 2026-10-28 |
| Forks | ⑂ 11K | ⑂ 268 |
| 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 Note : The main branch may be in an unstable or even broken state during development. For stable versions, see [releases][github release]. etcd is a distributed reliable key value store for the most critical data of a distributed system, with a focus on being: Simple : well defined, user facing API (gRPC) Secure : automatic TLS with optional client cert authentication Fast : benchmarked 10,000 writes/sec Reliable : properly distributed using Raft etcd is written in Go and uses the [Raft][] consensus algorithm to manage a highly available replicated log. etcd is used in production by many companies, and the…
About miniredis
Miniredis Pure Go Redis test server, used in Go unittests. Sometimes you want to test code which uses Redis, without making it a full blown integration test. Miniredis implements (parts of) the Redis server, to be used in unittests. It enables a simple, cheap, in memory, Redis replacement, with a real TCP interface. Think of it as the Redis version of net/http/httptest . It saves you from using mock code, and since the redis server lives in the test process you can query for values directly, without going through the server stack. There are no dependencies on external binaries, so you can easily integrate it in…
read the full miniredis overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is etcd or miniredis more popular?
etcd has 52,439 GitHub stars and miniredis has 3,635. 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 (52,439 stars) or its Apache-2.0 licence terms. Choose miniredis if its feature set, stack or MIT licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.