head to head · open source
OpenObserve vs airframe
OpenObserve has 22,777 GitHub stars, 1,179 forks, 598 open issues and last shipped yesterday. airframe has 666 stars, 67 forks, 105 open issues and last shipped 2 days ago. OpenObserve leads on adoption by 3,320% (22,777 vs 666 stars). OpenObserve is written in TypeScript under AGPL-3.0; airframe is written in Scala under Apache-2.0. OpenObserve has attracted 5% as many forks as stars, airframe 10%. OpenObserve was the more recently maintained of the two, and both are self-hostable with no licence fee. The two share 1 topic tag (metrics), 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
| OpenObserve | airframe | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 23K | ★ 666 |
| License | AGPL-3.0 | Apache-2.0 |
| Written in | TypeScript | Scala |
| Last push | 2026-11-04 | 2026-11-03 |
| Forks | ⑂ 1.2K | ⑂ 67 |
| Self-hosting | Yes | Yes |
| Data ownership | Your server | Your server |
pick OpenObserve if
- You weight community size — 23K 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 airframe if
- You want the airframe feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the Apache-2.0 license terms
- Your stack matches Scala
- You evaluated both and airframe fits your workflow better
About OpenObserve
Open source Datadog alternative for logs, metrics, traces, and frontend monitoring. Modern observability platform: 10x easier, 140x lower storage cost, high performance, petabyte scale. Cloud · Documentation · Slack · Quickstart OpenObserve (O2) is a cloud native observability platform for logs, metrics, traces, analytics, Real User Monitoring (RUM), and AI/LLM observability. It's a cost effective alternative to Datadog, Splunk, and Elasticsearch for teams that need full observability without the complexity or cost — with Parquet columnar storage and an S3 native design that cuts storage costs by up to 140x…
read the full OpenObserve overview →
About airframe
[![Gitter Chat][gitter badge]][gitter link] [![CI Status][gha badge]][gha link] [![scala index][sindex badge]][sindex link] [![maven central][central badge]][central link] [circleci badge]: [circleci link]: [gha badge]: [gha link]: [gitter badge]: [gitter link]: [coverall badge]: [coverall link]: [sindex badge]: [sindex link]: [central badge]: [central link]: Airframe is essential building blocks for developing applications in Scala, including logging, object serialization using JSON or MessagePack, dependency injection, http server/client with RPC support, functional testing with AirSpec, etc. Resources…
read the full airframe overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is OpenObserve or airframe more popular?
OpenObserve has 22,777 GitHub stars and airframe has 666. OpenObserve has the larger community by that measure.
Are OpenObserve and airframe free?
Both are open source. OpenObserve is licensed under AGPL-3.0 and airframe under Apache-2.0. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between OpenObserve and airframe?
OpenObserve is written in TypeScript and airframe in Scala. The practical differences are community size, licence terms, language stack and release cadence — all compared in the table above.
Which should I choose, OpenObserve or airframe?
Choose OpenObserve if you want the larger community (22,777 stars) or its AGPL-3.0 licence terms. Choose airframe if its feature set, stack or Apache-2.0 licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.