Methods and systems are disclosed for managing replication of metadata in a master-slave database environment. While metadata is managed on a master node using database tables with transaction guarantees, metadata copies on the slave node are managed using a lightweight key-value store. In exemplary embodiments, master metadata database tables are mapped to respective key-value structures at one or more slave nodes. The key-value structures have entries pointing to respective metadata objects, which include copies of metadata items stored in the master metadata database tables. The key-value structures can be hierarchically organized under a parent key-value structure. Metadata object versions can be organized as a linked list to facilitate multi-version concurrency control. Methods are disclosed for building the key-value store, for retrieving metadata from the store, for updating the store, for providing multi-version concurrency control, and for pruning obsolete metadata versions. Variants are disclosed.