head to head · open source
nats-server vs Trench
nats-server has 20,745 GitHub stars, 1,962 forks, 472 open issues and last shipped yesterday. Trench has 1,663 stars, 64 forks, 3 open issues and last shipped 6 months ago. nats-server leads on adoption by 1,147% (20,745 vs 1,663 stars). nats-server is written in Go under Apache-2.0; Trench is written in TypeScript under MIT. nats-server has attracted 9% as many forks as stars, Trench 4%. nats-server was the more recently maintained of the two, and both are self-hostable with no licence fee.
Two open source projects, one decision. Both are free and self-hostable — the differences are community size, license terms, language stack and release pace.
← all 15422 open source comparisons
Side by side
| nats-server | Trench | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 21K | ★ 1.7K |
| License | Apache-2.0 | MIT |
| Written in | Go | TypeScript |
| Last push | 2026-09-18 | 2026-04-06 |
| Forks | ⑂ 2.0K | ⑂ 64 |
| Self-hosting | Yes | Yes |
| Data ownership | Your server | Your server |
pick nats-server 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 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 nats-server
nats server is the Go based, Apache 2.0 licensed server at the heart of NATS, a simple, secure and performant communications system for digital systems, services and devices, aimed at teams building distributed systems, microservices, and cloud, edge or connected vehicle deployments that need messaging without running heavyweight broker infrastructure.
read the full nats-server overview →
About Trench
Trench is an open source analytics infrastructure project written in TypeScript under the MIT license. It is built around Apache Kafka, ClickHouse, and a Node.js based service, and it is distributed as a single production ready Docker image for event tracking. The project sits in the open source event streaming and analytics ecosystem, where teams collect product events, query them quickly, and connect data to dashboards, LLM retrieval pipelines, observability tools, or other analytics products.
read the full Trench overview →
More in Infrastructure & Operations
Related comparisons
More Messaging & Event Streaming projects
Compare either of these against the rest of the Messaging & Event Streaming field.
Frequently asked questions
Is nats-server or Trench more popular?
nats-server has 20,745 GitHub stars and Trench has 1,663. nats-server has the larger community by that measure.
Are nats-server and Trench free?
Both are open source. nats-server is licensed under Apache-2.0 and Trench under MIT. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between nats-server and Trench?
nats-server is written in Go 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, nats-server or Trench?
Choose nats-server if you want the larger community (20,745 stars) or its Apache-2.0 licence terms. Choose Trench if its feature set, stack or MIT licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.