head to head · open source
etcd vs rainfrog
etcd has 52,270 GitHub stars, 10,506 forks, 351 open issues and last shipped yesterday. rainfrog has 5,337 stars, 95 forks, 14 open issues and last shipped 2 days ago. etcd leads on adoption by 879% (52,270 vs 5,337 stars). etcd is written in Go under Apache-2.0; rainfrog is written in Rust under MIT. etcd has attracted 20% as many forks as stars, rainfrog 2%. etcd 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 | rainfrog | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 52K | ★ 5.3K |
| License | Apache-2.0 | MIT |
| Written in | Go | Rust |
| Last push | 2026-09-18 | 2026-09-17 |
| Forks | ⑂ 11K | ⑂ 95 |
| 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 rainfrog if
- You want the rainfrog feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the MIT license terms
- Your stack matches Rust
- You evaluated both and rainfrog 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 rainfrog
rainfrog is a lightweight, MIT licensed terminal database client written in Rust, built for developers and operators who want to browse schemas, run queries, and inspect tables against PostgreSQL, MySQL, SQLite, and similar engines without leaving the shell.
read the full rainfrog overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is etcd or rainfrog more popular?
etcd has 52,270 GitHub stars and rainfrog has 5,337. etcd has the larger community by that measure.
Are etcd and rainfrog free?
Both are open source. etcd is licensed under Apache-2.0 and rainfrog under MIT. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between etcd and rainfrog?
etcd is written in Go and rainfrog 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 rainfrog?
Choose etcd if you want the larger community (52,270 stars) or its Apache-2.0 licence terms. Choose rainfrog if its feature set, stack or MIT licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.