etcd Project Journey Report | CNCF

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etcd is a highly reliable key-value store for distributed systems that provides a way for applications of any complexity — from simple web applications to large software platforms — to store and access critical data.
Originally created at CoreOS, which Red Hat acquired in 2018, etcd offers users consistency guarantees and the ability to tolerate machine failures, even in the leader node. Applications can read data from, as well as write data into, etcd. It can monitor specific keys or directories for changes and automatically react, enabling applications to reconfigure themselves accordingly. It is the primary datastore for CNCF’s highest open source velocity project Kubernetes.
etcd joined the CNCF in December 2018 and remained in incubation for nearly two years before graduating in November 2020. CNCF published the first etcd project journey report in March 2021. Now, after more than three years of impressive project growth and community expansion, we are proud to present the second etcd project journey report, updated for 2024.
In this project journey report, we guide you through the remarkable growth journey etcd has experienced under CNCF. We can’t attribute every data point to specific inputs, but we can document and explore the correlations in search of successful decisions and actions. This report is part of a series of project journey reports published by the CNCF.
NOTE: These statistics were collected with the DevStats tool, which CNCF built in collaboration with CNCF project communities. When we refer to “Contributor,” we mean somebody who made a review, commented, committed, created a PR or issue.
Xiang Li made the first commit to the etcd GitHub repository on June 6, 2013. Since joining CNCF on December 11, 2018, etcd has added:
etcd has been adopted by organizations across the globe, including leaders in financial services, technology, telecommunications, artificial intelligence, and others, such as Fidelity Investments, Ant Financial, and Huawei. Additionally, Kubernetes clusters use etcd as their primary data store, meaning end users relying on etcd include Google, Alibaba Cloud, Amazon, Booking.com, Spotify, OpenAI, SquareSpace, Visa, Salesforce, Uber, and many others
“When etcd was donated, it had been the storage system for Kubernetes for years. Kubernetes depends on etcd to the point where problems in etcd have deep and lasting impact to Kubernetes and the ecosystem. Looking back, should [etcd’s adoption by CNCF] have happened earlier? Absolutely. But the project is in a healthy state, and its donation to CNCF was a critical step toward getting there.”
Google Technical Staff Member and Emeritus etcd Maintainer
etcd has increased velocity and adoption thanks to healthy coordination and shared vision among its major vendor and end-user contributing communities. From its roots at CoreOS, the project has grown to incorporate meaningful contributions from over 870 organizations, as well as many independent contributors, who have collectively shaped it through user-driven innovation.
The diversity of contributors is likewise expanding; in addition to its creator CoreOS, contributing organizations also include some of the world’s largest tech companies, such as Google, Red Hat, VMware (by Broadcom), Amazon, Alibaba, IBM, and Meta, as well as fast-growing mid-sized enterprises, like Indeed and Cockroach Labs. Contributions also come from dozens of smaller businesses and innovative startups, including Heptio and Weaveworks. Contributing organizations are well distributed between vendors and end users, demonstrating how users themselves can help foster and sustain fast-growing, successful projects.CoreOS has made the most contributions to the project since its inception, with many additional companies contributing during that time. As of the August 2024 reporting date, CoreOS still led with 36% of contributions, while Google held second place with 14%. The total number of contributing companies has increased by 75% since etcd joined CNCF, rising from 499 to 873. This growth corresponds to a rise in individual contributors during the same period from 2,328 to 5,667 — a 143% increase.
All time contributions to etcd now total over 168,800, up 127% from 74,327, when it joined CNCF. CoreOS’ share of contributions decreased from 2018 until the company ceased operations in 2020, but it still leads in overall contributions. Today, Google, VMware by Broadcom, Red Hat, and Amazon are the most prolific contributing companies. These numbers indicate a healthy dynamic, with early joiners continuing to contribute while other organizations and individuals come onboard to share stewardship and grow the community.
The diversity of company contributors and the healthy balance of vendor and end-user input continue to fuel growth and give users confidence in choosing etcd as their distributed key-value store.
Cumulative growth of etcd contributions by company 2014-01-01 – 2024-08-01
Percentage breakdown of etcd contributions by company 2014-01-01 – 2024-08-01
Cumulative growth of contributing companies 2014-01-01 – 2024-08-01
Cumulative growth in contributors 2014-01-01 – 2024-08-01
Percentage contributions to etcd by country 2014-01-01 – 2024-08-01
Evaluating velocity allows the CNCF, the Linux Foundation, and other stakeholders to track trends and technologies resonating with developers and end users. By observing the velocity of various projects, we can understand which ones are growing, which are maturing, and which are cultivating large communities. This information can then be used to guide decisions and strategies.
Based on velocity metrics since joining CNCF, etcd appears set to continue growing at a robust pace.One way we track developer velocity (as defined by us) is with a simple formula: commits + PRs + issues + authors. We also look at cumulative numbers of contributors throughout etcd’s hi