head to head · open source
rustfs vs Zenko
rustfs has 34,078 GitHub stars, 1,530 forks, 28 open issues and last shipped today. Zenko has 673 stars, 92 forks, 13 open issues and last shipped 6 days ago. rustfs leads on adoption by 4,964% (34,078 vs 673 stars). rustfs is written in Rust under Apache-2.0; Zenko is written in Gherkin under Apache-2.0. rustfs has attracted 4% as many forks as stars, Zenko 14%. rustfs was the more recently maintained of the two, and both are self-hostable with no licence fee. The two share 1 topic tag (cloud-native), 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.
← all 20902 open source comparisons
Side by side
| rustfs | Zenko | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 34K | ★ 673 |
| License | Apache-2.0 | Apache-2.0 |
| Written in | Rust | Gherkin |
| Last push | 2026-09-29 | 2026-09-23 |
| Forks | ⑂ 1.5K | ⑂ 92 |
| 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 Zenko if
- You want the Zenko feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the Apache-2.0 license terms
- Your stack matches Gherkin
- You evaluated both and Zenko 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 Zenko
Zenko is Scality's Apache 2.0 licensed open source multi cloud data controller, aimed at teams that want to keep control of data spread across local storage and public clouds behind a single unified namespace, access API, and search layer.
read the full Zenko overview →
More in Data & Analytics
Related comparisons
More Data Warehousing & Processing projects
Compare either of these against the rest of the Data Warehousing & Processing field.
Frequently asked questions
Is rustfs or Zenko more popular?
rustfs has 34,078 GitHub stars and Zenko has 673. rustfs has the larger community by that measure.
Are rustfs and Zenko free?
Both are open source. rustfs is licensed under Apache-2.0 and Zenko under Apache-2.0. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between rustfs and Zenko?
rustfs is written in Rust and Zenko in Gherkin. 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 Zenko?
Choose rustfs if you want the larger community (34,078 stars) or its Apache-2.0 licence terms. Choose Zenko if its feature set, stack or Apache-2.0 licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.