head to head · open source
OpenObserve vs loongcollector
OpenObserve has 22,027 GitHub stars, 1,098 forks, 598 open issues and last shipped today. loongcollector has 2,196 stars, 450 forks, 166 open issues and last shipped today. OpenObserve leads on adoption by 903% (22,027 vs 2,196 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 20%. loongcollector 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 | ★ 22K | ★ 2.2K |
| License | AGPL-3.0 | Apache-2.0 |
| Written in | TypeScript | C++ |
| Last push | 2026-09-20 | 2026-09-20 |
| Forks | ⑂ 1.1K | ⑂ 450 |
| 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 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
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 loongcollector
LoongCollector is an Apache 2.0, C++ based observability data collector from Alibaba that runs as a universal node agent for logs, metrics, traces, events and profiles, and it is built for platform, SRE and security teams operating Kubernetes clusters and high volume production fleets.
read the full loongcollector overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is OpenObserve or loongcollector more popular?
OpenObserve has 22,027 GitHub stars and loongcollector has 2,196. 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 (22,027 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.