What is etcd used for?

etcd is a highly available key-value store that keeps a distributed system's essential data consistent across nodes using Raft consensus and a gRPC API. It is a good fit for storing Kubernetes cluster state, service coordination and configuration, and leader election and distributed locks.

Yes. etcd is open source under the Apache-2.0 licence. Its source code is on GitHub at etcd-io/etcd and is written mainly in Go.

Yes. etcd is open source, so the software itself is free to use.

Can I self-host etcd?

Yes. etcd can be self-hosted on your own server or infrastructure; there is no official hosted version.

What are some alternatives to etcd?

Similar open-source tools in the Databases category include TiDB, YugabyteDB and CloudNativePG. SaaS products in the same category include Aerospike, EDB Postgres AI and Momento.

Is etcd actively maintained?

Yes. The most recent commit to etcd was on 1 October 2026, and the latest release is v3.7.2, published on 22 September 2026. The project has 52k stars on GitHub.

etcd: open-source databases

About etcd

etcd is a distributed key-value store built to hold the data a distributed system cannot afford to lose. Written in Go, it relies on the Raft algorithm to maintain a highly available replicated log, so a cluster keeps agreeing on its data even when individual members fail. It is a Cloud Native Computing Foundation project and is closely associated with Kubernetes, which relies on it to store cluster state.

The project lists four design goals. The API is simple and well defined, exposed through gRPC. Security is built in, with automatic TLS and optional client certificate authentication. Performance is benchmarked at around ten thousand writes per second according to the maintainers, and reliability comes from the Raft design and rigorous robustness testing. A command line client called etcdctl handles day-to-day operations.

etcd is Apache-2.0 licensed and used in production by many organizations. The README notes that the main branch may be unstable during development, so deployments should use tagged releases. It is infrastructure software that you run yourself, typically as a three- or five-member cluster.

Key features

Distributed key-value storage
Raft consensus for a replicated log
Simple, well-defined gRPC API
Automatic TLS with optional client certificates
etcdctl command line client
Kubernetes-friendly configuration store

Good fit for

→Storing Kubernetes cluster state
→Service coordination and configuration
→Leader election and distributed locks

Built with: Go; Kubernetes
Tags: key-value; distributed-systems; raft; kubernetes; cncf; database; go; consensus

etcd: questions and answers

What is etcd used for?: etcd is a highly available key-value store that keeps a distributed system's essential data consistent across nodes using Raft consensus and a gRPC API. It is a good fit for storing Kubernetes cluster state, service coordination and configuration, and leader election and distributed locks.
Is etcd open source?: Yes. etcd is open source under the Apache-2.0 licence. Its source code is on GitHub at etcd-io/etcd and is written mainly in Go.
Is etcd free?: Yes. etcd is open source, so the software itself is free to use.
Can I self-host etcd?: Yes. etcd can be self-hosted on your own server or infrastructure; there is no official hosted version.
What are some alternatives to etcd?: Similar open-source tools in the Databases category include TiDB, YugabyteDB and CloudNativePG. SaaS products in the same category include Aerospike, EDB Postgres AI and Momento.
Is etcd actively maintained?: Yes. The most recent commit to etcd was on 1 October 2026, and the latest release is v3.7.2, published on 22 September 2026. The project has 52k stars on GitHub.