head to head · open source
whodb vs olake
whodb has 5,049 GitHub stars, 241 forks, 42 open issues and last shipped yesterday. olake has 1,576 stars, 273 forks, 178 open issues and last shipped 2 days ago. whodb leads on adoption by 220% (5,049 vs 1,576 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 | ★ 1.6K |
| License | Apache-2.0 | Apache-2.0 |
| Written in | Go | Go |
| Last push | 2026-11-04 | 2026-11-03 |
| Forks | ⑂ 241 | ⑂ 273 |
| 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 A lightweight, self hosted workspace for your databases Available on Quick start · Documentation · Live demo · Community WhoDB gives you one place to explore your databases, edit data, run queries, and understand how a schema fits together. It runs in the browser, is easy to self host, and is available as a desktop app or terminal CLI too. Use it when you want to inspect a local database, help a teammate explore unfamiliar data, or work without installing a heavyweight database client. AI features are optional: connect Ollama, OpenAI, Anthropic, LM Studio, or another OpenAI compatible provider if you want…
read the full whodb overview →
About olake
OLake Go OLake Go is a high performance, open source data ingestion engine for replicating databases, S3, and Kafka into Apache Iceberg (or plain Parquet). Built for scalable, real time pipelines, OLake Go provides a simple web UI and CLI used to ingest into vendor lock in free Iceberg tables supporting all the query engines/warehouses. Read the docs and benchmarks at olake.io/docs . Join our active community on Slack . [!NOTE] 🎉 OLake Fusion is now live! — Automate your Apache Iceberg Table Maintenance. Check it out here → github.com/datazip inc/olake fusion 🎉 OLake Go — Super fast Sync to Apache Iceberg…
read the full olake overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is whodb or olake more popular?
whodb has 5,049 GitHub stars and olake has 1,576. 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 (5,049 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.