head to head · open source
rocksdb vs postgres
rocksdb has 32,108 GitHub stars, 6,931 forks, 1,645 open issues and last shipped yesterday. postgres has 8,730 stars, 374 forks, 303 open issues and last shipped 16 days ago. rocksdb leads on adoption by 268% (32,108 vs 8,730 stars). rocksdb is written in C++ under GPL-2.0; postgres is written in JavaScript under Unlicense. rocksdb has attracted 22% as many forks as stars, postgres 4%. rocksdb was the more recently maintained of the two, and both are self-hostable with no licence fee. The two share 1 topic tag (database), 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
| rocksdb | postgres | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 32K | ★ 8.7K |
| License | GPL-2.0 | Unlicense |
| Written in | C++ | JavaScript |
| Last push | 2026-09-17 | 2026-09-02 |
| Forks | ⑂ 6.9K | ⑂ 374 |
| Self-hosting | Yes | Yes |
| Data ownership | Your server | Your server |
pick rocksdb if
- You weight community size — 32K stars and counting
- You want the GPL-2.0 license terms
- Your stack matches C++
- You value the larger contributor base for long-term maintenance
pick postgres if
- You want the postgres feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the Unlicense license terms
- Your stack matches JavaScript
- You evaluated both and postgres fits your workflow better
About rocksdb
RocksDB is an embeddable, persistent key value store written in C++ and developed by the Facebook Database Engineering Team. It is a library rather than a standalone server, and it forms the core building block for a fast key value server. The project builds on earlier work on LevelDB by Sanjay Ghemawat and Jeff Dean, and it lives in the systems infrastructure and database ecosystem, carrying the topics database and storage engine. It has been public for roughly fourteen years and is dual licensed under GPLv2 and Apache 2.0, so a user may select either license at their option.
read the full rocksdb overview →
About postgres
Postgres.js is a full featured PostgreSQL client for JavaScript and TypeScript runtimes — Node.js, Deno, Bun and Cloudflare — published to npm as postgres , and it is aimed at developers who need to query a PostgreSQL database from application code without adopting a heavier ORM or query builder.
read the full postgres overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is rocksdb or postgres more popular?
rocksdb has 32,108 GitHub stars and postgres has 8,730. rocksdb has the larger community by that measure.
Are rocksdb and postgres free?
Both are open source. rocksdb is licensed under GPL-2.0 and postgres under Unlicense. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between rocksdb and postgres?
rocksdb is written in C++ and postgres in JavaScript. The practical differences are community size, licence terms, language stack and release cadence — all compared in the table above.
Which should I choose, rocksdb or postgres?
Choose rocksdb if you want the larger community (32,108 stars) or its GPL-2.0 licence terms. Choose postgres if its feature set, stack or Unlicense licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.