head to head · open source
etcd vs go-redis
etcd has 52,276 GitHub stars, 10,510 forks, 351 open issues and last shipped 2 days ago. go-redis has 22,242 stars, 2,591 forks, 66 open issues and last shipped 3 days ago. etcd leads on adoption by 135% (52,276 vs 22,242 stars). etcd is written in Go under Apache-2.0; go-redis is written in Go under BSD-2-Clause. etcd has attracted 20% as many forks as stars, go-redis 12%. 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 | go-redis | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 52K | ★ 22K |
| License | Apache-2.0 | BSD-2-Clause |
| Written in | Go | Go |
| Last push | 2026-09-18 | 2026-09-17 |
| Forks | ⑂ 11K | ⑂ 2.6K |
| 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 go-redis if
- You want the go-redis feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the BSD-2-Clause license terms
- Your stack matches Go
- You evaluated both and go-redis 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 go-redis
go redis is the official Redis client library for the Go programming language, published as github.com/redis/go redis/v9 under the BSD 2 Clause licence, and it is aimed at Go developers whose applications need to talk to Redis servers.
read the full go-redis overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is etcd or go-redis more popular?
etcd has 52,276 GitHub stars and go-redis has 22,242. etcd has the larger community by that measure.
Are etcd and go-redis free?
Both are open source. etcd is licensed under Apache-2.0 and go-redis under BSD-2-Clause. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between etcd and go-redis?
etcd is written in Go and go-redis 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 go-redis?
Choose etcd if you want the larger community (52,276 stars) or its Apache-2.0 licence terms. Choose go-redis if its feature set, stack or BSD-2-Clause licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.