head to head · open source
etcd vs olric
etcd has 52,270 GitHub stars, 10,506 forks, 351 open issues and last shipped yesterday. olric has 3,494 stars, 152 forks, 19 open issues and last shipped 1 months ago. etcd leads on adoption by 1,396% (52,270 vs 3,494 stars). etcd is written in Go under Apache-2.0; olric is written in Go under Apache-2.0. etcd has attracted 20% as many forks as stars, olric 4%. etcd was the more recently maintained of the two, and both are self-hostable with no licence fee. The two share 4 topic tags (database, distributed-database, distributed-systems, key-value), 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 | olric | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 52K | ★ 3.5K |
| License | Apache-2.0 | Apache-2.0 |
| Written in | Go | Go |
| Last push | 2026-09-18 | 2026-08-20 |
| Forks | ⑂ 11K | ⑂ 152 |
| 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 olric if
- You want the olric feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the Apache-2.0 license terms
- Your stack matches Go
- You evaluated both and olric 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 olric
Olric is a distributed, in memory key/value store and cache written in Go that runs either as an embedded Go library or as a language independent standalone service, and it is aimed at teams that need a fast, scalable, shared pool of RAM across a cluster of machines.
read the full olric overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is etcd or olric more popular?
etcd has 52,270 GitHub stars and olric has 3,494. etcd has the larger community by that measure.
Are etcd and olric free?
Both are open source. etcd is licensed under Apache-2.0 and olric under Apache-2.0. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between etcd and olric?
etcd is written in Go and olric 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 olric?
Choose etcd if you want the larger community (52,270 stars) or its Apache-2.0 licence terms. Choose olric if its feature set, stack or Apache-2.0 licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.