head to head · open source
OpenObserve vs dd-trace-dotnet
OpenObserve has 22,796 GitHub stars, 1,179 forks, 598 open issues and last shipped yesterday. dd-trace-dotnet has 572 stars, 176 forks, 335 open issues and last shipped yesterday. OpenObserve leads on adoption by 3,885% (22,796 vs 572 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 31%. 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 | ★ 23K | ★ 572 |
| License | AGPL-3.0 | Apache-2.0 |
| Written in | TypeScript | C# |
| Last push | 2026-11-04 | 2026-11-04 |
| Forks | ⑂ 1.2K | ⑂ 176 |
| 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 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
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 dd-trace-dotnet
Datadog APM .NET Client Libraries This repository contains the sources for the client side components of the Datadog product suite for Application Telemetry Collection and Application Performance Monitoring for .NET Applications. Datadog .NET Tracer : A set of .NET libraries that let you trace any piece of your .NET code. It automatically instruments supported libraries out of the box and also supports custom instrumentation to instrument your own code. This library powers Distributed Tracing, Application Security Management, Continuous Integration Visibility, Dynamic Instrumentation and more. Datadog .NET…
read the full dd-trace-dotnet overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is OpenObserve or dd-trace-dotnet more popular?
OpenObserve has 22,796 GitHub stars and dd-trace-dotnet has 572. 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 (22,796 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.