head to head · open source
etcd vs Weaviate
etcd has 52,441 GitHub stars, 10,552 forks, 351 open issues and last shipped yesterday. Weaviate has 16,934 stars, 1,433 forks, 738 open issues and last shipped yesterday. etcd leads on adoption by 210% (52,441 vs 16,934 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 | 2026-11-02 | 2026-11-02 |
| 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 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 Weaviate
Weaviate Weaviate is an open source, cloud native vector database that stores both objects and vectors, enabling semantic search at scale. It combines vector similarity search with keyword filtering, retrieval augmented generation (RAG), and reranking in a single query interface. Common use cases include RAG systems, semantic and image search, recommendation engines, chatbots, and content classification. Weaviate supports two approaches to store vectors: automatic vectorization at import using integrated models (OpenAI, Cohere, HuggingFace, and others) or direct import of pre computed vector embeddings…
read the full Weaviate overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is etcd or Weaviate more popular?
etcd has 52,441 GitHub stars and Weaviate has 16,934. 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 (52,441 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.