head to head · open source
rustfs vs lakeFS
rustfs has 35,662 GitHub stars, 1,641 forks, 28 open issues and last shipped yesterday. lakeFS has 5,575 stars, 490 forks, 443 open issues and last shipped 2 days ago. rustfs leads on adoption by 540% (35,662 vs 5,575 stars). rustfs is written in Rust under Apache-2.0; lakeFS is written in Go under a custom or non-standard licence. rustfs has attracted 5% as many forks as stars, lakeFS 9%. rustfs 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
| rustfs | lakeFS | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 36K | ★ 5.6K |
| License | Apache-2.0 | Custom / other |
| Written in | Rust | Go |
| Last push | 2026-11-02 | 2026-11-01 |
| Forks | ⑂ 1.6K | ⑂ 490 |
| Self-hosting | Yes | Yes |
| Data ownership | Your server | Your server |
pick rustfs if
- You weight community size — 36K stars and counting
- You want the Apache-2.0 license terms
- Your stack matches Rust
- You value the larger contributor base for long-term maintenance
pick lakeFS if
- You want the lakeFS feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the Custom / other license terms
- Your stack matches Go
- You evaluated both and lakeFS fits your workflow better
About rustfs
RustFS is a high performance, distributed object storage system built in Rust. Getting Started · Docs · Bug reports · Discussions English 简体中文 Deutsch Español français 日本語 한국어 Portuguese Русский RustFS is a high performance, distributed object storage system built in Rust—one of the most loved programming languages worldwide. RustFS combines the simplicity of MinIO with the memory safety and raw performance of Rust. It offers broad S3 API compatibility for supported features, is completely open source, and is optimized for data lakes, AI, and big data workloads. Unlike other storage systems, RustFS is released…
read the full rustfs overview →
About lakeFS
lakeFS is Data Version Control (Git for Data) lakeFS is an open source tool that transforms your object storage into a Git like repository. It enables you to manage your data lake the way you manage your code. With lakeFS you can build repeatable, atomic, and versioned data lake operations from complex ETL jobs to data science and analytics. lakeFS supports AWS S3, Azure Blob Storage, and Google Cloud Storage as its underlying storage service. It is API compatible with S3 and works seamlessly with all modern data frameworks such as Spark, Hive, AWS Athena, DuckDB, and Presto. For more information, see the…
read the full lakeFS overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is rustfs or lakeFS more popular?
rustfs has 35,662 GitHub stars and lakeFS has 5,575. rustfs has the larger community by that measure.
Are rustfs and lakeFS free?
Both are open source. rustfs is licensed under Apache-2.0, and lakeFS has no licence declared in this registry. Both are free to self-host.
What is the difference between rustfs and lakeFS?
rustfs is written in Rust and lakeFS 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, rustfs or lakeFS?
Choose rustfs if you want the larger community (35,662 stars) or its Apache-2.0 licence terms. Choose lakeFS if its feature set, stack or Custom / other licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.