d-engine: A Lightweight Distributed Coordination Engine for Rust

Joshua Chi — Fri, 16 Jan 2026 03:57:20 +0000

A lightweight Raft implementation designed for embedding into Rust applications — the consensus layer for building reliable distributed systems.

Built with a simple vision: make distributed coordination accessible - cheap to run, simple to use.

Built on a core philosophy: choose simple architectures over complex ones.

Why I Built This

In my experience, adding distributed coordination to applications was always expensive – existing solutions like etcd are either too slow when embedded (gRPC overhead) or require running separate 3-node clusters.

d-engine aims to change this: make coordination cheap enough that you don't hesitate to add it when you need it.

Architecture

Single-threaded event loop: No race conditions, strict ordering. CPU-bound on single core—scale horizontally.

Role separation (SRP): Leader/Follower/Candidate/Learner each handle their own logic. Main loop just routes events.

Standard design for Raft implementations.

Two Integration Modes

Embedded mode - runs inside your Rust process:

let engine = EmbeddedEngine::start().await?;
engine.wait_ready(Duration::from_secs(5)).await?;;

let client = engine.client();
client.put(b"key".to_vec(), b"value".to_vec()).await?;  // <0.1ms

Direct memory access via mpsc channels (no serialization)
<0.1ms latency for local operations
Single binary deployment
Benchmark: 203K writes/s, 279K reads/s (M2 Mac)

Standalone mode - separate server process with gRPC:

d-engine = { version = "0.2", features = ["client"], default-features = false }

Language-agnostic (Go, Python, Java, Rust)
Independent scaling
Benchmark: 64K writes/s, 12K reads/s

Choose based on your language and latency requirements.

Benchmarks

Embedded mode (3-node cluster, M2 Mac localhost):

203K writes/s, 279K reads/s (linearizable)

Standalone mode (gRPC):

64K writes/s, 12K reads/s (linearizable)

Lab numbers only—production performance varies by workload and hardware.
Full details in benches/.

Design: Traits for Extension

d-engine provides working implementations (RocksDB storage, KV operations, gRPC transport). When defaults don't fit, implement the traits:

pub trait StorageEngine {
    type LogStore: LogStore;
    type MetaStore: MetaStore;
}

pub trait StateMachine {
    async fn apply_chunk(&self, entries: Vec<Entry>) -> Result<()>;
}

Examples in repo show Sled storage backend, custom HTTP handlers with HAProxy for HA deployments.

Consistency Model

Three read policies (configurable per-operation or server-wide):

LinearizableRead: Strongest guarantee, verify quorum (~2ms)
LeaseRead: Leader lease-based, fast path (~0.3ms, requires NTP)
EventualConsistency: Local read, may be stale (~0.1ms)

Trade-offs documented. Defaults are sane.

Start Simple, Scale When Needed

// Start with 1 node (auto-elected leader)
let engine = EmbeddedEngine::start().await?;

// Scale to 3 nodes later: update config, zero code changes
// See examples/single-node-expansion

No Kubernetes, no complex setup. Just Rust + config file.

What It Is

Raft consensus implementation
Pluggable storage (RocksDB, Sled, custom)
Flexible consistency (linearizable/lease/eventual)
Production-ready core, API stabilizing toward v1.0

Current State & Direction

Version 0.2

Core Raft engine is solid (1000+ tests, d-engine 0.1.x version Jepsen validated).
APIs are stabilizing toward v1.0. Pre-1.0 means breaking changes are possible
if they improve design.

No production users yet – looking for early adopters to validate real-world use cases.

Future Direction:

Cloud-native storage backends (Cloudflare, AWS, GCP)
Exploring: etcd-compatible API layer
Timeline depends on community feedback

Try It

[dependencies]
d-engine = "0.2"

GitHub: https://github.com/deventlab/d-engine
Docs: https://docs.rs/d-engine
Examples: https://github.com/deventlab/d-engine/tree/main/examples

If you're building distributed systems in Rust and need consensus, the code is there. Examples show embedded mode, standalone mode, custom storage, HA deployments with HAProxy.

Looking for Early Adopters

I'm looking for Rust developers building distributed systems who have real problems to solve:

Coordination bottlenecks in your architecture (slow consensus, expensive etcd clusters)
Specific use cases where strong consistency matters (leader election, distributed locks, metadata stores)
Production deployments where you need cheap, simple, and reliable coordination

Particularly interested in:

Teams with real coordination problems (not just kicking the tires)
Cloud-native scenarios (Cloudflare Workers, AWS Lambda, serverless)
Cost-sensitive use cases where etcd feels like overkill

What I'm offering:

Free architecture review for your use case
Direct access to roadmap planning
Quick response to GitHub issues/questions

If you have a specific problem: Open an issue with your use case, or reach out directly.
Show me what's broken, what's expensive, what's too complex. Let's see if d-engine can solve it cheaply.

License: MIT or Apache-2.0 | Platforms: Linux, macOS | MSRV: Rust 1.88

DEV Community: Joshua Chi