head to head · open source
OpenObserve vs Checkmate
OpenObserve has 21,993 GitHub stars, 1,091 forks, 598 open issues and last shipped yesterday. Checkmate has 10,830 stars, 1,200 forks, 114 open issues and last shipped yesterday. OpenObserve leads on adoption by 103% (21,993 vs 10,830 stars). OpenObserve is written in TypeScript under AGPL-3.0; Checkmate is written in TypeScript under AGPL-3.0. OpenObserve has attracted 5% as many forks as stars, Checkmate 11%. OpenObserve 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.
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Side by side
| OpenObserve | Checkmate | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 22K | ★ 11K |
| License | AGPL-3.0 | AGPL-3.0 |
| Written in | TypeScript | TypeScript |
| Last push | 2026-09-17 | 2026-09-17 |
| Forks | ⑂ 1.1K | ⑂ 1.2K |
| Self-hosting | Yes | Yes |
| Data ownership | Your server | Your server |
pick OpenObserve if
- You weight community size — 22K 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 Checkmate if
- You want the Checkmate feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the AGPL-3.0 license terms
- Your stack matches TypeScript
- You evaluated both and Checkmate fits your workflow better
About OpenObserve
OpenObserve is an open source observability platform for logs, metrics, traces, analytics, Real User Monitoring, session replay, pipelines, SLO, and LLM observability. It lives in the cloud native infrastructure ecosystem and is described as an alternative to Datadog, Splunk, and Elasticsearch. The project is built in Rust, ships as a single binary, and uses Parquet columnar storage with an S3 native design.
read the full OpenObserve overview →
About Checkmate
Checkmate is an open source, self hosted monitoring application for infrastructure and observability. It is written in TypeScript and released under the AGPL 3.0 license. The repository contains the frontend and backend, and the project sits in the infrastructure monitoring ecosystem for teams that need to track servers, websites, and hardware status without relying on a hosted only product.
read the full Checkmate overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is OpenObserve or Checkmate more popular?
OpenObserve has 21,993 GitHub stars and Checkmate has 10,830. OpenObserve has the larger community by that measure.
Are OpenObserve and Checkmate free?
Both are open source. OpenObserve is licensed under AGPL-3.0 and Checkmate under AGPL-3.0. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between OpenObserve and Checkmate?
OpenObserve is written in TypeScript and Checkmate 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, OpenObserve or Checkmate?
Choose OpenObserve if you want the larger community (21,993 stars) or its AGPL-3.0 licence terms. Choose Checkmate if its feature set, stack or AGPL-3.0 licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.