head to head · open source
shardingsphere vs hop
shardingsphere has 20,800 GitHub stars, 6,900 forks, 197 open issues and last shipped yesterday. hop has 1,465 stars, 477 forks, 431 open issues and last shipped yesterday. shardingsphere leads on adoption by 1,320% (20,800 vs 1,465 stars). shardingsphere is written in Java under Apache-2.0; hop is written in Java under Apache-2.0. shardingsphere has attracted 33% as many forks as stars, hop 33%. hop 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
| shardingsphere | hop | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 21K | ★ 1.5K |
| License | Apache-2.0 | Apache-2.0 |
| Written in | Java | Java |
| Last push | 2026-09-17 | 2026-09-17 |
| Forks | ⑂ 6.9K | ⑂ 477 |
| 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 hop if
- You want the hop 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 hop 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 hop
Apache Hop is an open source data and metadata orchestration platform in the Apache ecosystem. It is written in Java, licensed under Apache 2.0, and positioned for data engineering and integration work. Its stated aim is to facilitate all aspects of data and metadata orchestration.
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Frequently asked questions
Is shardingsphere or hop more popular?
shardingsphere has 20,800 GitHub stars and hop has 1,465. shardingsphere has the larger community by that measure.
Are shardingsphere and hop free?
Both are open source. shardingsphere is licensed under Apache-2.0 and hop under Apache-2.0. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between shardingsphere and hop?
shardingsphere is written in Java and hop 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 hop?
Choose shardingsphere if you want the larger community (20,800 stars) or its Apache-2.0 licence terms. Choose hop if its feature set, stack or Apache-2.0 licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.