head to head · open source
OpenObserve vs loongcollector
OpenObserve has 22,777 GitHub stars, 1,179 forks, 598 open issues and last shipped yesterday. loongcollector has 2,214 stars, 456 forks, 166 open issues and last shipped 2 days ago. OpenObserve leads on adoption by 929% (22,777 vs 2,214 stars). OpenObserve is written in TypeScript under AGPL-3.0; loongcollector is written in C++ under Apache-2.0. OpenObserve has attracted 5% as many forks as stars, loongcollector 21%. OpenObserve was the more recently maintained of the two, and both are self-hostable with no licence fee. The two share 1 topic tag (apm), 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 | loongcollector | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 23K | ★ 2.2K |
| License | AGPL-3.0 | Apache-2.0 |
| Written in | TypeScript | C++ |
| Last push | 2026-11-04 | 2026-11-03 |
| Forks | ⑂ 1.2K | ⑂ 456 |
| 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 loongcollector if
- You want the loongcollector 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 loongcollector 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 loongcollector
LoongCollector High Performance Observability Data Collector Fast, Lightweight, and Battle Tested Observability Agent Quick Start • Documentation • Performance Benchmarks • Contributing Why LoongCollector? LoongCollector is a high performance, lightweight observability data collector designed for modern cloud native environments. Born from Alibaba's 15 year journey handling exponential traffic growth and powering tens of millions of deployments, LoongCollector delivers 10x higher throughput with 80% lower resource usage compared to open source alternatives. LoongCollector is a key component of…
read the full loongcollector overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is OpenObserve or loongcollector more popular?
OpenObserve has 22,777 GitHub stars and loongcollector has 2,214. OpenObserve has the larger community by that measure.
Are OpenObserve and loongcollector free?
Both are open source. OpenObserve is licensed under AGPL-3.0 and loongcollector under Apache-2.0. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between OpenObserve and loongcollector?
OpenObserve is written in TypeScript and loongcollector 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 loongcollector?
Choose OpenObserve if you want the larger community (22,777 stars) or its AGPL-3.0 licence terms. Choose loongcollector if its feature set, stack or Apache-2.0 licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.