head to head · open source
etcd vs Neon Postgres
etcd has 52,270 GitHub stars, 10,504 forks, 351 open issues and last shipped yesterday. Neon Postgres has 23,099 stars, 1,096 forks, 558 open issues and last shipped 18 days ago. etcd leads on adoption by 126% (52,270 vs 23,099 stars). etcd is written in Go under Apache-2.0; Neon Postgres is written in Rust under Apache-2.0. etcd has attracted 20% as many forks as stars, Neon Postgres 5%. 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 | Neon Postgres | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 52K | ★ 23K |
| License | Apache-2.0 | Apache-2.0 |
| Written in | Go | Rust |
| Last push | 2026-09-17 | 2026-08-31 |
| 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 Neon Postgres if
- You want the Neon Postgres 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 Neon Postgres 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 Neon Postgres
Neon is an open source serverless Postgres database platform. It separates storage and compute, and it substitutes the PostgreSQL storage layer by redistributing data across a cluster of nodes. The project lives in the Postgres and serverless database ecosystem.
read the full Neon Postgres overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is etcd or Neon Postgres more popular?
etcd has 52,270 GitHub stars and Neon Postgres has 23,099. etcd has the larger community by that measure.
Are etcd and Neon Postgres free?
Both are open source. etcd is licensed under Apache-2.0 and Neon Postgres under Apache-2.0. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between etcd and Neon Postgres?
etcd is written in Go and Neon Postgres 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 Neon Postgres?
Choose etcd if you want the larger community (52,270 stars) or its Apache-2.0 licence terms. Choose Neon Postgres if its feature set, stack or Apache-2.0 licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.