Etch was an open-source, cross-platform framework for building network services, first announced in May 2008 by Cisco Systems.

It is intended to supplement SOAP and CORBA as methods of communicating between networked pieces of software, especially where there is an emphasis on portability, transport independence, small size, and high performance.

Etch was designed to be incorporated into existing applications and systems, enabling a transition to a service-oriented architecture.

A second wave of support was supposed to include Ruby, Python, JavaScript, and C.[1] In July 2008, Etch was released under the Apache 2.0 license.

As part of the open source process, Etch was submitted to the Apache Incubator to be accepted as a new podling.