head to head · open source
kafka vs Trench
kafka has 34,117 GitHub stars, 15,657 forks, 574 open issues and last shipped yesterday. Trench has 1,666 stars, 66 forks, 3 open issues and last shipped 7 months ago. kafka leads on adoption by 1,948% (34,117 vs 1,666 stars). kafka is written in Java under Apache-2.0; Trench is written in TypeScript under MIT. kafka has attracted 46% as many forks as stars, Trench 4%. kafka was the more recently maintained of the two, and both are self-hostable with no licence fee. The two share 1 topic tag (kafka), 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
| kafka | Trench | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 34K | ★ 1.7K |
| License | Apache-2.0 | MIT |
| Written in | Java | TypeScript |
| Last push | 2026-11-02 | 2026-04-06 |
| Forks | ⑂ 16K | ⑂ 66 |
| Self-hosting | Yes | Yes |
| Data ownership | Your server | Your server |
pick kafka if
- You weight community size — 34K stars and counting
- You want the Apache-2.0 license terms
- Your stack matches Java
- You value the larger contributor base for long-term maintenance
pick Trench if
- You want the Trench feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the MIT license terms
- Your stack matches TypeScript
- You evaluated both and Trench fits your workflow better
About kafka
Apache Kafka is an open source distributed event streaming platform used by thousands of companies for high performance data pipelines, streaming analytics, data integration, and mission critical applications. You need to have Java installed. We build and test Apache Kafka with Java versions 17 and 25. The release parameter in javac is set to 11 for the clients and streams modules, and 17 for the rest, ensuring compatibility with their respective minimum Java versions. Similarly, the release parameter in scalac is set to 11 for the streams modules and 17 for the rest. Scala 2.13 is the only supported version in…
read the full kafka overview →
About Trench
Open Source Analytics Infrastructure Documentation · Website · Slack Community · Demo 🌊 What is Trench? Trench is an event tracking system built on top of Apache Kafka and ClickHouse. It can handle large event volumes and provides real time analytics. Trench is no cookie, GDPR, and PECR compliant. Users have full control to access, rectify, or delete their data. Our team built Trench to scale up the real time event tracking pipeline at Frigade . ⭐ Features 🤝 Compliant with the Segment API (Track, Group, Identify) 🐳 Deploy quickly with a single production ready Docker image 💻 Process thousands of events per…
read the full Trench overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is kafka or Trench more popular?
kafka has 34,117 GitHub stars and Trench has 1,666. kafka has the larger community by that measure.
Are kafka and Trench free?
Both are open source. kafka is licensed under Apache-2.0 and Trench under MIT. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between kafka and Trench?
kafka is written in Java and Trench in TypeScript. The practical differences are community size, licence terms, language stack and release cadence — all compared in the table above.
Which should I choose, kafka or Trench?
Choose kafka if you want the larger community (34,117 stars) or its Apache-2.0 licence terms. Choose Trench if its feature set, stack or MIT licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.