head to head · open source
OpenObserve vs swift-metrics
OpenObserve has 22,027 GitHub stars, 1,098 forks, 598 open issues and last shipped today. swift-metrics has 795 stars, 81 forks, 8 open issues and last shipped 10 days ago. OpenObserve leads on adoption by 2,671% (22,027 vs 795 stars). OpenObserve is written in TypeScript under AGPL-3.0; swift-metrics is written in Swift under Apache-2.0. OpenObserve has attracted 5% as many forks as stars, swift-metrics 10%. OpenObserve was the more recently maintained of the two, and both are self-hostable with no licence fee. The two share 1 topic tag (metrics), 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 | swift-metrics | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 22K | ★ 795 |
| License | AGPL-3.0 | Apache-2.0 |
| Written in | TypeScript | Swift |
| Last push | 2026-09-20 | 2026-09-10 |
| Forks | ⑂ 1.1K | ⑂ 81 |
| 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 swift-metrics if
- You want the swift-metrics feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the Apache-2.0 license terms
- Your stack matches Swift
- You evaluated both and swift-metrics 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 swift-metrics
SwiftMetrics is the Apache 2.0 metrics API package for Swift, a shared abstraction that lets server side and cross platform Swift applications emit metrics for observability through whichever backend an application owner selects rather than tying emission code to a single library.
read the full swift-metrics overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is OpenObserve or swift-metrics more popular?
OpenObserve has 22,027 GitHub stars and swift-metrics has 795. OpenObserve has the larger community by that measure.
Are OpenObserve and swift-metrics free?
Both are open source. OpenObserve is licensed under AGPL-3.0 and swift-metrics under Apache-2.0. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between OpenObserve and swift-metrics?
OpenObserve is written in TypeScript and swift-metrics in Swift. 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 swift-metrics?
Choose OpenObserve if you want the larger community (22,027 stars) or its AGPL-3.0 licence terms. Choose swift-metrics if its feature set, stack or Apache-2.0 licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.