head to head · open source
etcd vs q
etcd has 52,270 GitHub stars, 10,506 forks, 351 open issues and last shipped today. q has 10,360 stars, 425 forks, 132 open issues and last shipped 7 months ago. etcd leads on adoption by 405% (52,270 vs 10,360 stars). etcd is written in Go under Apache-2.0; q is written in Python under GPL-3.0. etcd has attracted 20% as many forks as stars, q 4%. 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 | q | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 52K | ★ 10K |
| License | Apache-2.0 | GPL-3.0 |
| Written in | Go | Python |
| Last push | 2026-09-18 | 2026-02-06 |
| Forks | ⑂ 11K | ⑂ 425 |
| 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 q if
- You want the q feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the GPL-3.0 license terms
- Your stack matches Python
- You evaluated both and q 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 q
q is a Python command line tool, licensed under GPL 3.0, that runs SQL statements directly against delimited text files and multi file SQLite databases without importing the data into a database server first.
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Frequently asked questions
Is etcd or q more popular?
etcd has 52,270 GitHub stars and q has 10,360. etcd has the larger community by that measure.
Are etcd and q free?
Both are open source. etcd is licensed under Apache-2.0 and q under GPL-3.0. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between etcd and q?
etcd is written in Go and q in Python. 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 q?
Choose etcd if you want the larger community (52,270 stars) or its Apache-2.0 licence terms. Choose q if its feature set, stack or GPL-3.0 licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.