head to head · open source
Grafana vs Sentry
Grafana has 76,791 GitHub stars, 14,749 forks, 3,326 open issues and last shipped yesterday. Sentry has 44,792 stars, 4,854 forks, 2,265 open issues and last shipped yesterday. Grafana leads on adoption by 71% (76,791 vs 44,792 stars). Grafana is written in TypeScript under AGPL-3.0; Sentry is written in Python under a custom or non-standard licence. Grafana has attracted 19% as many forks as stars, Sentry 11%. Sentry was the more recently maintained of the two, and both are self-hostable with no licence fee. The two share 2 topic tags (hacktoberfest, monitoring), 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
| Grafana | Sentry | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 77K | ★ 45K |
| License | AGPL-3.0 | Custom / other |
| Written in | TypeScript | Python |
| Last push | 2026-09-17 | 2026-09-17 |
| Forks | ⑂ 15K | ⑂ 4.9K |
| Self-hosting | Yes | Yes |
| Data ownership | Your server | Your server |
pick Grafana if
- You weight community size — 77K stars and counting
- You want the AGPL-3.0 license terms
- Your stack matches TypeScript
- You value the larger contributor base for long-term maintenance
pick Sentry if
- You want the Sentry feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the Custom / other license terms
- Your stack matches Python
- You evaluated both and Sentry fits your workflow better
About Grafana
Grafana is an open source observability platform for visualizing metrics, logs, and traces across diverse data sources. It runs in the infrastructure and operations ecosystem, designed for teams needing unified visibility into system behavior without vendor lock in. Built with TypeScript and Go, it provides a composable architecture that integrates with existing toolchains.
read the full Grafana overview →
About Sentry
Sentry is an open source debugging platform for detecting, tracing, and fixing software issues in real time. It lives in the developer infrastructure ecosystem and provides error tracking and performance monitoring across languages, frameworks, and runtime environments.
read the full Sentry overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is Grafana or Sentry more popular?
Grafana has 76,791 GitHub stars and Sentry has 44,792. Grafana has the larger community by that measure.
Are Grafana and Sentry free?
Both are open source. Grafana is licensed under AGPL-3.0, and Sentry has no licence declared in this registry. Both are free to self-host.
What is the difference between Grafana and Sentry?
Grafana is written in TypeScript and Sentry in Python. The practical differences are community size, licence terms, language stack and release cadence — all compared in the table above.
Which should I choose, Grafana or Sentry?
Choose Grafana if you want the larger community (76,791 stars) or its AGPL-3.0 licence terms. Choose Sentry if its feature set, stack or Custom / other licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.