head to head · open source
etcd vs postgres-operator
etcd has 52,441 GitHub stars, 10,552 forks, 351 open issues and last shipped yesterday. postgres-operator has 5,270 stars, 1,079 forks, 546 open issues and last shipped yesterday. etcd leads on adoption by 895% (52,441 vs 5,270 stars). etcd is written in Go under Apache-2.0; postgres-operator is written in Go under MIT. etcd has attracted 20% as many forks as stars, postgres-operator 20%. etcd was the more recently maintained of the two, and both are self-hostable with no licence fee. The two share 1 topic tag (kubernetes), 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 | postgres-operator | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 52K | ★ 5.3K |
| License | Apache-2.0 | MIT |
| Written in | Go | Go |
| Last push | 2026-11-02 | 2026-11-02 |
| 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 postgres-operator if
- You want the postgres-operator feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the MIT license terms
- Your stack matches Go
- You evaluated both and postgres-operator 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 postgres-operator
Postgres Operator The Postgres Operator delivers an easy to run highly available PostgreSQL clusters on Kubernetes (K8s) powered by Patroni. It is configured only through Postgres manifests (CRDs) to ease integration into automated CI/CD pipelines with no access to Kubernetes API directly, promoting infrastructure as code vs manual operations. Operator features Rolling updates on Postgres cluster changes, incl. quick minor version updates Live volume resize without pod restarts (AWS EBS, PVC) Database connection pooling with PGBouncer Support fast in place major version upgrade. Supports global upgrade of all…
read the full postgres-operator overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is etcd or postgres-operator more popular?
etcd has 52,441 GitHub stars and postgres-operator has 5,270. etcd has the larger community by that measure.
Are etcd and postgres-operator free?
Both are open source. etcd is licensed under Apache-2.0 and postgres-operator under MIT. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between etcd and postgres-operator?
etcd is written in Go and postgres-operator 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 postgres-operator?
Choose etcd if you want the larger community (52,441 stars) or its Apache-2.0 licence terms. Choose postgres-operator if its feature set, stack or MIT licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.