head to head · open source
etcd vs Raphtory
etcd has 52,270 GitHub stars, 10,506 forks, 351 open issues and last shipped today. Raphtory has 642 stars, 70 forks, 196 open issues and last shipped yesterday. etcd leads on adoption by 8,042% (52,270 vs 642 stars). etcd is written in Go under Apache-2.0; Raphtory is written in Rust under GPL-3.0. etcd has attracted 20% as many forks as stars, Raphtory 11%. 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 | Raphtory | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 52K | ★ 642 |
| License | Apache-2.0 | GPL-3.0 |
| Written in | Go | Rust |
| Last push | 2026-09-18 | 2026-09-17 |
| Forks | ⑂ 11K | ⑂ 70 |
| 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 Raphtory if
- You want the Raphtory feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the GPL-3.0 license terms
- Your stack matches Rust
- You evaluated both and Raphtory 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 Raphtory
🌍 Website   📒 Documentation   Pometry   🧙Tutorial   🐛 Report a Bug   Join Slack Raphtory is an in memory vectorised graph database written in Rust with friendly Python APIs on top. It is blazingly fast, scales to hundreds of millions of edges on your laptop, and can be dropped into your existing pipelines with a simple pip install raphtory . It can be ran embedded or as a server instance using GraphQL, supports time traveling, full text search, multilayer modelling, and advanced analytics beyond simple querying like automatic risk detection, dynamic scoring, and temporal motifs. With the s…
read the full Raphtory overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is etcd or Raphtory more popular?
etcd has 52,270 GitHub stars and Raphtory has 642. etcd has the larger community by that measure.
Are etcd and Raphtory free?
Both are open source. etcd is licensed under Apache-2.0 and Raphtory under GPL-3.0. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between etcd and Raphtory?
etcd is written in Go and Raphtory 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 Raphtory?
Choose etcd if you want the larger community (52,270 stars) or its Apache-2.0 licence terms. Choose Raphtory if its feature set, stack or GPL-3.0 licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.