head to head · open source
rustfs vs lakeFS
rustfs has 33,528 GitHub stars, 1,502 forks, 28 open issues and last shipped yesterday. lakeFS has 5,535 stars, 477 forks, 443 open issues and last shipped 5 days ago. rustfs leads on adoption by 506% (33,528 vs 5,535 stars). rustfs is written in Rust under Apache-2.0; lakeFS is written in Go under Apache-2.0. rustfs has attracted 4% 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 | ★ 34K | ★ 5.5K |
| License | Apache-2.0 | Apache-2.0 |
| Written in | Rust | Go |
| Last push | 2026-09-21 | 2026-09-17 |
| Forks | ⑂ 1.5K | ⑂ 477 |
| Self-hosting | Yes | Yes |
| Data ownership | Your server | Your server |
pick rustfs if
- You weight community size — 34K 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 Apache-2.0 license terms
- Your stack matches Go
- You evaluated both and lakeFS fits your workflow better
About rustfs
RustFS is an open source, S3 compatible, high performance distributed object storage system written in Rust, aimed at teams running data lakes, AI, and big data workloads who want MinIO style operational simplicity without the restrictions of an AGPL licence.
read the full rustfs overview →
About lakeFS
lakeFS is an open source data version control tool — commonly described as Git for data — that turns object storage into a versioned, Git like repository, and it is built for data engineers, analytics engineers, and data scientists who need repeatable, atomic, and auditable data lake operations.
read the full lakeFS overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is rustfs or lakeFS more popular?
rustfs has 33,528 GitHub stars and lakeFS has 5,535. 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 under Apache-2.0. Neither carries a licence fee.
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 (33,528 stars) or its Apache-2.0 licence terms. Choose lakeFS if its feature set, stack or Apache-2.0 licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.