head to head · open source
etcd vs VictoriaMetrics
etcd has 52,270 GitHub stars, 10,504 forks, 351 open issues and last shipped yesterday. VictoriaMetrics has 17,731 stars, 1,743 forks, 800 open issues and last shipped yesterday. etcd leads on adoption by 195% (52,270 vs 17,731 stars). etcd is written in Go under Apache-2.0; VictoriaMetrics is written in Go under Apache-2.0. etcd has attracted 20% as many forks as stars, VictoriaMetrics 10%. VictoriaMetrics was the more recently maintained of the two, and both are self-hostable with no licence fee. The two share 2 topic tags (database, 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.
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Side by side
| etcd | VictoriaMetrics | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 52K | ★ 18K |
| License | Apache-2.0 | Apache-2.0 |
| Written in | Go | Go |
| Last push | 2026-09-17 | 2026-09-17 |
| Forks | ⑂ 11K | ⑂ 1.7K |
| 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 VictoriaMetrics if
- You want the VictoriaMetrics 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 VictoriaMetrics 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 VictoriaMetrics
VictoriaMetrics is time series database for metrics and logs. It is monitoring solution and database, written in Go, licensed under Apache 2.0. Category is Infrastructure & Operations / Databases. GitHub metadata lists 17714 stars and 1738 forks. Homepage is victoriametrics.com. It lives in infrastructure and operations ecosystem. Topic list includes Prometheus, Grafana, Kubernetes, OpenTelemetry, OTLP, Graphite, InfluxDB, OpenTSDB, metrics, monitoring, observability.
read the full VictoriaMetrics overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is etcd or VictoriaMetrics more popular?
etcd has 52,270 GitHub stars and VictoriaMetrics has 17,731. etcd has the larger community by that measure.
Are etcd and VictoriaMetrics free?
Both are open source. etcd is licensed under Apache-2.0 and VictoriaMetrics under Apache-2.0. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between etcd and VictoriaMetrics?
etcd is written in Go and VictoriaMetrics 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 VictoriaMetrics?
Choose etcd if you want the larger community (52,270 stars) or its Apache-2.0 licence terms. Choose VictoriaMetrics if its feature set, stack or Apache-2.0 licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.