head to head · open source
seaweedfs vs lakeFS
seaweedfs has 34,859 GitHub stars, 3,004 forks, 772 open issues and last shipped yesterday. lakeFS has 5,535 stars, 477 forks, 443 open issues and last shipped 5 days ago. seaweedfs leads on adoption by 530% (34,859 vs 5,535 stars). seaweedfs is written in Go under Apache-2.0; lakeFS is written in Go under Apache-2.0. seaweedfs has attracted 9% as many forks as stars, lakeFS 9%. seaweedfs 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
| seaweedfs | lakeFS | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 35K | ★ 5.5K |
| License | Apache-2.0 | Apache-2.0 |
| Written in | Go | Go |
| Last push | 2026-09-21 | 2026-09-17 |
| Forks | ⑂ 3.0K | ⑂ 477 |
| Self-hosting | Yes | Yes |
| Data ownership | Your server | Your server |
pick seaweedfs if
- You weight community size — 35K 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 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 seaweedfs
SeaweedFS is an Apache 2.0 distributed storage system written in Go that serves an S3 compatible object store, a POSIX file system, and Iceberg lakehouse tables from one weed binary, built for storing and serving billions of files with O(1) disk access.
read the full seaweedfs 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 seaweedfs or lakeFS more popular?
seaweedfs has 34,859 GitHub stars and lakeFS has 5,535. seaweedfs has the larger community by that measure.
Are seaweedfs and lakeFS free?
Both are open source. seaweedfs is licensed under Apache-2.0 and lakeFS under Apache-2.0. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between seaweedfs and lakeFS?
seaweedfs is written in Go 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, seaweedfs or lakeFS?
Choose seaweedfs if you want the larger community (34,859 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.