Paxos

Back to Consensus Algorithms

The classic consensus algorithm by Leslie Lamport. Proposers, acceptors, and learners work together to agree on a value. Correct and proven but notoriously difficult to understand and implement. Many real-world systems use Paxos variants (Multi-Paxos, Cheap Paxos). Google’s Chubby lock service uses Paxos internally.

Key Properties

  • Raft (designed as an understandable alternative to Paxos)
  • Zab (ZooKeeper’s alternative approach)

distributed-systems consensus