head to head · open source
etcd vs HashiCorp Vault
etcd has 52,270 GitHub stars, 10,506 forks, 351 open issues and last shipped today. HashiCorp Vault has 36,262 stars, 4,760 forks, 1,435 open issues and last shipped yesterday. etcd leads on adoption by 44% (52,270 vs 36,262 stars). etcd is written in Go under Apache-2.0; HashiCorp Vault is written in Go under a custom or non-standard licence. etcd has attracted 20% as many forks as stars, HashiCorp Vault 13%. etcd was the more recently maintained of the two, and both are self-hostable with no licence fee. The two share 1 topic tag (go), 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 | HashiCorp Vault | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 52K | ★ 36K |
| License | Apache-2.0 | Custom / other |
| Written in | Go | Go |
| Last push | 2026-09-18 | 2026-09-17 |
| Forks | ⑂ 11K | ⑂ 4.8K |
| 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 HashiCorp Vault if
- You want the HashiCorp Vault feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the Custom / other license terms
- Your stack matches Go
- You evaluated both and HashiCorp Vault 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 HashiCorp Vault
Vault is a secrets management tool built in Go, designed to securely store, control access to, and manage sensitive data such as API keys, passwords, certificates, and encryption keys. It operates as a centralized service that abstracts secret access across diverse systems, providing unified APIs and enforcing strict access policies. Vault lives in the HashiCorp ecosystem and integrates with infrastructure tools like Consul for storage backends and Terraform for provisioning workflows.
read the full HashiCorp Vault overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is etcd or HashiCorp Vault more popular?
etcd has 52,270 GitHub stars and HashiCorp Vault has 36,262. etcd has the larger community by that measure.
Are etcd and HashiCorp Vault free?
Both are open source. etcd is licensed under Apache-2.0, and HashiCorp Vault has no licence declared in this registry. Both are free to self-host.
What is the difference between etcd and HashiCorp Vault?
etcd is written in Go and HashiCorp Vault 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 HashiCorp Vault?
Choose etcd if you want the larger community (52,270 stars) or its Apache-2.0 licence terms. Choose HashiCorp Vault if its feature set, stack or Custom / other licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.