head to head · open source
etcd vs spicedb
etcd has 52,441 GitHub stars, 10,552 forks, 351 open issues and last shipped yesterday. spicedb has 7,186 stars, 438 forks, 157 open issues and last shipped 2 days ago. etcd leads on adoption by 630% (52,441 vs 7,186 stars). etcd is written in Go under Apache-2.0; spicedb is written in Go under Apache-2.0. etcd has attracted 20% as many forks as stars, spicedb 6%. etcd was the more recently maintained of the two, and both are self-hostable with no licence fee. The two share 3 topic tags (database, distributed-systems, 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.
← all 20902 open source comparisons
Side by side
| etcd | spicedb | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 52K | ★ 7.2K |
| License | Apache-2.0 | Apache-2.0 |
| Written in | Go | Go |
| Last push | 2026-11-02 | 2026-11-01 |
| Forks | ⑂ 11K | ⑂ 438 |
| 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 spicedb if
- You want the spicedb feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the Apache-2.0 license terms
- Your stack matches Go
- You evaluated both and spicedb 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 spicedb
SpiceDB sets the standard for authorization that scales . Scale with Traffic • Dev Velocity • Functionality • Geography What is SpiceDB? SpiceDB is the most mature open source project inspired by Google's internal authorization system: [Zanzibar]. As of 2021, [broken access control became the 1 threat to web security according to OWASP][owasp]. With SpiceDB, platform and product teams can be be protected by answering this question easily: "can subject X perform action Y on resource Z?" Similar to a relational database, developers define a schema , write data in the form of relationships , and then use SpiceDB's…
read the full spicedb overview →
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 spicedb more popular?
etcd has 52,441 GitHub stars and spicedb has 7,186. etcd has the larger community by that measure.
Are etcd and spicedb free?
Both are open source. etcd is licensed under Apache-2.0 and spicedb under Apache-2.0. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between etcd and spicedb?
etcd is written in Go and spicedb 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 spicedb?
Choose etcd if you want the larger community (52,441 stars) or its Apache-2.0 licence terms. Choose spicedb if its feature set, stack or Apache-2.0 licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.