head to head · open source
OpenObserve vs dd-trace-dotnet
OpenObserve has 22,027 GitHub stars, 1,098 forks, 598 open issues and last shipped today. dd-trace-dotnet has 575 stars, 168 forks, 335 open issues and last shipped today. OpenObserve leads on adoption by 3,731% (22,027 vs 575 stars). OpenObserve is written in TypeScript under AGPL-3.0; dd-trace-dotnet is written in C# under Apache-2.0. OpenObserve has attracted 5% as many forks as stars, dd-trace-dotnet 29%. OpenObserve was the more recently maintained of the two, and both are self-hostable with no licence fee. The two share 2 topic tags (apm, datadog), 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 | dd-trace-dotnet | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 22K | ★ 575 |
| License | AGPL-3.0 | Apache-2.0 |
| Written in | TypeScript | C# |
| Last push | 2026-09-20 | 2026-09-20 |
| Forks | ⑂ 1.1K | ⑂ 168 |
| 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 dd-trace-dotnet if
- You want the dd-trace-dotnet feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the Apache-2.0 license terms
- Your stack matches C#
- You evaluated both and dd-trace-dotnet 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 dd-trace-dotnet
dd trace dotnet is the Apache 2.0 C repository containing Datadog's .NET client libraries for application telemetry collection, distributed tracing, and continuous profiling, built for .NET developers and operators who need to instrument .NET applications and send telemetry to the Datadog product suite.
read the full dd-trace-dotnet overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is OpenObserve or dd-trace-dotnet more popular?
OpenObserve has 22,027 GitHub stars and dd-trace-dotnet has 575. OpenObserve has the larger community by that measure.
Are OpenObserve and dd-trace-dotnet free?
Both are open source. OpenObserve is licensed under AGPL-3.0 and dd-trace-dotnet under Apache-2.0. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between OpenObserve and dd-trace-dotnet?
OpenObserve is written in TypeScript and dd-trace-dotnet in C#. 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 dd-trace-dotnet?
Choose OpenObserve if you want the larger community (22,027 stars) or its AGPL-3.0 licence terms. Choose dd-trace-dotnet if its feature set, stack or Apache-2.0 licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.