head to head · open source
etcd vs Weaviate
etcd has 52,270 GitHub stars, 10,504 forks, 351 open issues and last shipped yesterday. Weaviate has 16,818 stars, 1,403 forks, 738 open issues and last shipped yesterday. etcd leads on adoption by 211% (52,270 vs 16,818 stars). etcd is written in Go under Apache-2.0; Weaviate is written in Go under a custom or non-standard licence. etcd has attracted 20% as many forks as stars, Weaviate 8%. Weaviate was the more recently maintained of the two, and both are self-hostable with no licence fee.
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 | Weaviate | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 52K | ★ 17K |
| License | Apache-2.0 | Custom / other |
| Written in | Go | Go |
| Last push | 2026-09-17 | 2026-09-17 |
| Forks | ⑂ 11K | ⑂ 1.4K |
| 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 Weaviate if
- You want the Weaviate feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the Custom / other license terms
- Your stack matches Go
- You evaluated both and Weaviate 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 Weaviate
Weaviate open source vector database. Stores objects and vectors together. Lives in cloud native database and AI search ecosystem. Enables semantic search at scale. Combines vector similarity search with keyword filtering, retrieval augmented generation, and reranking in single query interface.
read the full Weaviate overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is etcd or Weaviate more popular?
etcd has 52,270 GitHub stars and Weaviate has 16,818. etcd has the larger community by that measure.
Are etcd and Weaviate free?
Both are open source. etcd is licensed under Apache-2.0, and Weaviate has no licence declared in this registry. Both are free to self-host.
What is the difference between etcd and Weaviate?
etcd is written in Go and Weaviate 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 Weaviate?
Choose etcd if you want the larger community (52,270 stars) or its Apache-2.0 licence terms. Choose Weaviate if its feature set, stack or Custom / other licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.