head to head · open source
shardingsphere vs debezium
shardingsphere has 20,800 GitHub stars, 6,900 forks, 197 open issues and last shipped yesterday. debezium has 13,129 stars, 3,042 forks, 131 open issues and last shipped yesterday. shardingsphere leads on adoption by 58% (20,800 vs 13,129 stars). shardingsphere is written in Java under Apache-2.0; debezium is written in Java under Apache-2.0. shardingsphere has attracted 33% as many forks as stars, debezium 23%. debezium was the more recently maintained of the two, and both are self-hostable with no licence fee. The two share 2 topic tags (data-pipeline, 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
| shardingsphere | debezium | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 21K | ★ 13K |
| License | Apache-2.0 | Apache-2.0 |
| Written in | Java | Java |
| Last push | 2026-09-17 | 2026-09-17 |
| Forks | ⑂ 6.9K | ⑂ 3.0K |
| Self-hosting | Yes | Yes |
| Data ownership | Your server | Your server |
pick shardingsphere if
- You weight community size — 21K stars and counting
- You want the Apache-2.0 license terms
- Your stack matches Java
- You value the larger contributor base for long-term maintenance
pick debezium if
- You want the debezium feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the Apache-2.0 license terms
- Your stack matches Java
- You evaluated both and debezium fits your workflow better
About shardingsphere
Apache ShardingSphere is an Apache 2.0 licensed, Java based distributed database ecosystem positioned as Database Plus — a standards and enhancement layer that sits above heterogeneous databases so applications can connect to, govern, and compute across them as if they were one database, aimed at enterprise data architects and developers running sharded, multi database estates.
read the full shardingsphere overview →
About debezium
Debezium is an open source, low latency change data capture (CDC) platform that monitors databases and turns every row level change into an ordered event stream that applications consume, and it is built for Java teams already running Apache Kafka and Kafka Connect.
read the full debezium overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is shardingsphere or debezium more popular?
shardingsphere has 20,800 GitHub stars and debezium has 13,129. shardingsphere has the larger community by that measure.
Are shardingsphere and debezium free?
Both are open source. shardingsphere is licensed under Apache-2.0 and debezium under Apache-2.0. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between shardingsphere and debezium?
shardingsphere is written in Java and debezium in Java. The practical differences are community size, licence terms, language stack and release cadence — all compared in the table above.
Which should I choose, shardingsphere or debezium?
Choose shardingsphere if you want the larger community (20,800 stars) or its Apache-2.0 licence terms. Choose debezium if its feature set, stack or Apache-2.0 licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.