head to head · open source
shardingsphere vs flink-cdc
shardingsphere has 20,817 GitHub stars, 6,906 forks, 197 open issues and last shipped yesterday. flink-cdc has 6,493 stars, 2,205 forks, 119 open issues and last shipped yesterday. shardingsphere leads on adoption by 221% (20,817 vs 6,493 stars). shardingsphere is written in Java under Apache-2.0; flink-cdc is written in Java under Apache-2.0. shardingsphere has attracted 33% as many forks as stars, flink-cdc 34%. shardingsphere 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, mysql), 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 | flink-cdc | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 21K | ★ 6.5K |
| License | Apache-2.0 | Apache-2.0 |
| Written in | Java | Java |
| Last push | 2026-11-02 | 2026-11-02 |
| Forks | ⑂ 6.9K | ⑂ 2.2K |
| 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 flink-cdc if
- You want the flink-cdc 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 flink-cdc fits your workflow better
About shardingsphere
Apache ShardingSphere Enterprise Distributed Database Ecosystem Building the standards and ecosystem on top of heterogeneous databases, empowering enterprise data architecture transformation Official Website: OVERVIEW Apache ShardingSphere is positioned as Database Plus , a standard and ecosystem built on top of heterogeneous databases. As an operating system layer above databases, ShardingSphere does not create new databases but focuses on maximizing the computing capabilities of existing databases, providing unified data access and enhanced computing capabilities. Database Plus Core Concept : By building a…
read the full shardingsphere overview →
About flink-cdc
Flink CDC is a distributed data integration tool for real time data and batch data, built on top of Apache Flink. It prioritizes efficient end to end data integration and offers enhanced functionalities such as full database synchronization, sharding table synchronization, schema evolution and data transformation. API Layers Flink CDC provides three API layers for different usage scenarios: 1. YAML API (Pipeline API) The YAML API provides a declarative, zero code approach to define data pipelines. Users describe the source, sink, routing, transformation, and schema evolution rules in a YAML file and submit it…
read the full flink-cdc overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is shardingsphere or flink-cdc more popular?
shardingsphere has 20,817 GitHub stars and flink-cdc has 6,493. shardingsphere has the larger community by that measure.
Are shardingsphere and flink-cdc free?
Both are open source. shardingsphere is licensed under Apache-2.0 and flink-cdc under Apache-2.0. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between shardingsphere and flink-cdc?
shardingsphere is written in Java and flink-cdc 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 flink-cdc?
Choose shardingsphere if you want the larger community (20,817 stars) or its Apache-2.0 licence terms. Choose flink-cdc if its feature set, stack or Apache-2.0 licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.