head to head · open source
whodb vs olake
whodb has 5,033 GitHub stars, 240 forks, 42 open issues and last shipped today. olake has 1,453 stars, 252 forks, 178 open issues and last shipped yesterday. whodb leads on adoption by 246% (5,033 vs 1,453 stars). whodb is written in Go under Apache-2.0; olake is written in Go under Apache-2.0. whodb has attracted 5% as many forks as stars, olake 17%. whodb 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
| whodb | olake | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 5.0K | ★ 1.5K |
| License | Apache-2.0 | Apache-2.0 |
| Written in | Go | Go |
| Last push | 2026-09-20 | 2026-09-19 |
| Forks | ⑂ 240 | ⑂ 252 |
| Self-hosting | Yes | Yes |
| Data ownership | Your server | Your server |
pick whodb if
- You weight community size — 5.0K 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 olake if
- You want the olake 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 olake fits your workflow better
About whodb
WhoDB is an Apache 2.0, Go based open source data workspace that gives users one place to explore databases, edit data, run queries, and understand how a schema fits together. It runs in the browser, is available as a desktop application, and also provides a terminal CLI, so it fits the open source data engineering and integration ecosystem for internal tools, data platforms, database management, data governance, data integration, data pipelines, data catalogs, data lineage, and ER diagrams.
read the full whodb overview →
About olake
OLake Go is an open source data ingestion engine written in Go and licensed under Apache 2.0. It replicates transactional databases, Apache Kafka, and S3 into Apache Iceberg or plain Parquet, and it provides a web UI and a command line interface for building scalable, real time pipelines. The project sits in the Apache Iceberg and lakehouse ecosystem, where its stated goal is to move data into vendor neutral table formats that can be read by query engines and warehouses.
read the full olake overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is whodb or olake more popular?
whodb has 5,033 GitHub stars and olake has 1,453. whodb has the larger community by that measure.
Are whodb and olake free?
Both are open source. whodb is licensed under Apache-2.0 and olake under Apache-2.0. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between whodb and olake?
whodb is written in Go and olake 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, whodb or olake?
Choose whodb if you want the larger community (5,033 stars) or its Apache-2.0 licence terms. Choose olake if its feature set, stack or Apache-2.0 licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.