head to head · open source
etcd vs tile38
etcd has 52,270 GitHub stars, 10,506 forks, 351 open issues and last shipped yesterday. tile38 has 9,732 stars, 622 forks, 163 open issues and last shipped 17 days ago. etcd leads on adoption by 437% (52,270 vs 9,732 stars). etcd is written in Go under Apache-2.0; tile38 is written in Go under MIT. etcd has attracted 20% as many forks as stars, tile38 6%. 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 | tile38 | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 52K | ★ 9.7K |
| License | Apache-2.0 | MIT |
| Written in | Go | Go |
| Last push | 2026-09-18 | 2026-09-02 |
| Forks | ⑂ 11K | ⑂ 622 |
| 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 tile38 if
- You want the tile38 feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the MIT license terms
- Your stack matches Go
- You evaluated both and tile38 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 tile38
Tile38 is an open source, MIT licensed, in memory geolocation data store and spatial index that doubles as a realtime geofencing server, written in Go and aimed at developers who need to store, query, and react to location data in real time.
read the full tile38 overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is etcd or tile38 more popular?
etcd has 52,270 GitHub stars and tile38 has 9,732. etcd has the larger community by that measure.
Are etcd and tile38 free?
Both are open source. etcd is licensed under Apache-2.0 and tile38 under MIT. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between etcd and tile38?
etcd is written in Go and tile38 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 tile38?
Choose etcd if you want the larger community (52,270 stars) or its Apache-2.0 licence terms. Choose tile38 if its feature set, stack or MIT licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.