head to head · open source
etcd vs pgdog
etcd has 52,270 GitHub stars, 10,506 forks, 351 open issues and last shipped yesterday. pgdog has 5,498 stars, 282 forks, 208 open issues and last shipped yesterday. etcd leads on adoption by 851% (52,270 vs 5,498 stars). etcd is written in Go under Apache-2.0; pgdog is written in Rust under AGPL-3.0. etcd has attracted 20% as many forks as stars, pgdog 5%. pgdog was the more recently maintained of the two, and both are self-hostable with no licence fee.
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 | pgdog | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 52K | ★ 5.5K |
| License | Apache-2.0 | AGPL-3.0 |
| Written in | Go | Rust |
| Last push | 2026-09-18 | 2026-09-18 |
| Forks | ⑂ 11K | ⑂ 282 |
| 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 pgdog if
- You want the pgdog feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the AGPL-3.0 license terms
- Your stack matches Rust
- You evaluated both and pgdog 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 pgdog
PgDog is an open source proxy for scaling PostgreSQL that pools connections, load balances queries across primary and replicas, and shards entire databases, written in Rust and aimed at teams whose PostgreSQL deployments have outgrown a single client to server connection per application process.
read the full pgdog overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is etcd or pgdog more popular?
etcd has 52,270 GitHub stars and pgdog has 5,498. etcd has the larger community by that measure.
Are etcd and pgdog free?
Both are open source. etcd is licensed under Apache-2.0 and pgdog under AGPL-3.0. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between etcd and pgdog?
etcd is written in Go and pgdog 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 pgdog?
Choose etcd if you want the larger community (52,270 stars) or its Apache-2.0 licence terms. Choose pgdog if its feature set, stack or AGPL-3.0 licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.