head to head · open source
shardingsphere vs Elementary Data
shardingsphere has 20,800 GitHub stars, 6,900 forks, 197 open issues and last shipped yesterday. Elementary Data has 2,410 stars, 226 forks, 12 open issues and last shipped yesterday. shardingsphere leads on adoption by 763% (20,800 vs 2,410 stars). shardingsphere is written in Java under Apache-2.0; Elementary Data is written in HTML under Apache-2.0. shardingsphere has attracted 33% as many forks as stars, Elementary Data 9%. shardingsphere was the more recently maintained of the two, and both are self-hostable with no licence fee. The two share 1 topic tag (data-pipeline), 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 | Elementary Data | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 21K | ★ 2.4K |
| License | Apache-2.0 | Apache-2.0 |
| Written in | Java | HTML |
| Last push | 2026-09-17 | 2026-09-17 |
| Forks | ⑂ 6.9K | ⑂ 226 |
| 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 Elementary Data if
- You want the Elementary Data feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the Apache-2.0 license terms
- Your stack matches HTML
- You evaluated both and Elementary Data 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 Elementary Data
Elementary Data is an open source, dbt native data observability tool for data and analytics engineers. It lives in the dbt and modern data warehouse ecosystem, and it is distributed as a CLI that works alongside the Elementary dbt package. The project is licensed under Apache 2.0, is written primarily in HTML, and is maintained by the Elementary team with a homepage at elementary data.com and documentation at docs.elementary data.com.
read the full Elementary Data overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is shardingsphere or Elementary Data more popular?
shardingsphere has 20,800 GitHub stars and Elementary Data has 2,410. shardingsphere has the larger community by that measure.
Are shardingsphere and Elementary Data free?
Both are open source. shardingsphere is licensed under Apache-2.0 and Elementary Data under Apache-2.0. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between shardingsphere and Elementary Data?
shardingsphere is written in Java and Elementary Data in HTML. 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 Elementary Data?
Choose shardingsphere if you want the larger community (20,800 stars) or its Apache-2.0 licence terms. Choose Elementary Data if its feature set, stack or Apache-2.0 licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.