head to head · open source
gofr vs rsyslog
gofr has 20,909 GitHub stars, 1,760 forks, 132 open issues and last shipped 2 days ago. rsyslog has 2,336 stars, 736 forks, 207 open issues and last shipped 4 days ago. gofr leads on adoption by 795% (20,909 vs 2,336 stars). gofr is written in Go under Apache-2.0; rsyslog is written in C under LGPL-3.0. gofr has attracted 8% as many forks as stars, rsyslog 32%. gofr was the more recently maintained of the two, and both are self-hostable with no licence fee. The two share 1 topic tag (logging), so they are genuine substitutes rather than adjacent tools.
Two open source projects, one decision. Both are free and self-hostable — the differences are community size, license terms, language stack and release pace.
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Side by side
| gofr | rsyslog | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 21K | ★ 2.3K |
| License | Apache-2.0 | LGPL-3.0 |
| Written in | Go | C |
| Last push | 2026-09-18 | 2026-09-16 |
| Forks | ⑂ 1.8K | ⑂ 736 |
| Self-hosting | Yes | Yes |
| Data ownership | Your server | Your server |
pick gofr if
- You weight community size — 21K stars and counting
- You want the Apache-2.0 license terms
- Your stack matches Go
- You value the larger contributor base for long-term maintenance
pick rsyslog if
- You want the rsyslog feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the LGPL-3.0 license terms
- Your stack matches C
- You evaluated both and rsyslog fits your workflow better
About gofr
GoFr is an opinionated Go framework for building microservices, aimed at Go developers and platform teams who want HTTP, gRPC, data access and observability built in rather than assembled from separate libraries.
About rsyslog
Rsyslog is a high performance log ingestion and ETL engine written in C and released under the LGPL 3.0, built for operators and engineers who must take in, transform, and route very large volumes of log data from many sources to many destinations.
read the full rsyslog overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is gofr or rsyslog more popular?
gofr has 20,909 GitHub stars and rsyslog has 2,336. gofr has the larger community by that measure.
Are gofr and rsyslog free?
Both are open source. gofr is licensed under Apache-2.0 and rsyslog under LGPL-3.0. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between gofr and rsyslog?
gofr is written in Go and rsyslog in C. The practical differences are community size, licence terms, language stack and release cadence — all compared in the table above.
Which should I choose, gofr or rsyslog?
Choose gofr if you want the larger community (20,909 stars) or its Apache-2.0 licence terms. Choose rsyslog if its feature set, stack or LGPL-3.0 licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.