head to head · open source
etcd vs sled
etcd has 52,270 GitHub stars, 10,506 forks, 351 open issues and last shipped yesterday. sled has 9,091 stars, 427 forks, 172 open issues and last shipped 6 months ago. etcd leads on adoption by 475% (52,270 vs 9,091 stars). etcd is written in Go under Apache-2.0; sled is written in Rust under Apache-2.0. etcd has attracted 20% as many forks as stars, sled 5%. 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.
← all 13541 open source comparisons
Side by side
| etcd | sled | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 52K | ★ 9.1K |
| License | Apache-2.0 | Apache-2.0 |
| Written in | Go | Rust |
| Last push | 2026-09-18 | 2026-04-04 |
| Forks | ⑂ 11K | ⑂ 427 |
| 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 sled if
- You want the sled feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the Apache-2.0 license terms
- Your stack matches Rust
- You evaluated both and sled 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 sled
sled is an embedded key value database for Rust programs, written in Rust under the Apache 2.0 licence, aimed at developers who want a threadsafe, crash safe local store inside their own process instead of running a separate database server.
More in Infrastructure & Operations
Related comparisons
More Databases projects
Compare either of these against the rest of the Databases field.
Frequently asked questions
Is etcd or sled more popular?
etcd has 52,270 GitHub stars and sled has 9,091. etcd has the larger community by that measure.
Are etcd and sled free?
Both are open source. etcd is licensed under Apache-2.0 and sled under Apache-2.0. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between etcd and sled?
etcd is written in Go and sled 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 sled?
Choose etcd if you want the larger community (52,270 stars) or its Apache-2.0 licence terms. Choose sled if its feature set, stack or Apache-2.0 licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.