head to head · open source
Sentry vs alerta
Sentry has 45,704 GitHub stars, 4,959 forks, 2,265 open issues and last shipped yesterday. alerta has 2,535 stars, 377 forks, 34 open issues and last shipped 19 days ago. Sentry leads on adoption by 1,703% (45,704 vs 2,535 stars). Sentry is written in Python under a custom or non-standard licence; alerta is written in Python under Apache-2.0. Sentry has attracted 11% as many forks as stars, alerta 15%. Sentry was the more recently maintained of the two, and both are self-hostable with no licence fee. The two share 1 topic tag (monitoring), 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
| Sentry | alerta | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 46K | ★ 2.5K |
| License | Custom / other | Apache-2.0 |
| Written in | Python | Python |
| Last push | 2026-11-04 | 2026-10-17 |
| Forks | ⑂ 5.0K | ⑂ 377 |
| Self-hosting | Yes | Yes |
| Data ownership | Your server | Your server |
pick Sentry if
- You weight community size — 46K stars and counting
- You want the Custom / other license terms
- Your stack matches Python
- You value the larger contributor base for long-term maintenance
pick alerta if
- You want the alerta feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the Apache-2.0 license terms
- Your stack matches Python
- You evaluated both and alerta fits your workflow better
About Sentry
Users and logs provide clues. Sentry provides answers. What's Sentry? Sentry is the debugging platform that helps every developer detect, trace, and fix issues. Code breaks, fix it faster. Official Sentry SDKs JavaScript Electron React Native Python Ruby PHP Laravel Go Rust Java/Kotlin Objective C/Swift C\ /F\ C/C++ Dart/Flutter Perl Clojure Elixir Unity Unreal Engine Godot Engine PowerShell Resources Documentation Discussions (Bugs, feature requests, general questions) Discord Contributing Bug Tracker Code Transifex (Translate Sentry\!)
read the full Sentry overview →
About alerta
Alerta Release 9.1 ================== The Alerta monitoring tool was developed with the following aims in mind: distributed and de coupled so that it is SCALABLE minimal CONFIGURATION that easily accepts alerts from any source quick at a glance VISUALISATION with drill down to detail Requirements Release 9 only supports Python 3.9 or higher. The only mandatory dependency is MongoDB or PostgreSQL. Everything else is optional. Postgres version 13 or better MongoDB version 6.0 or better Installation To install MongoDB on Debian/Ubuntu run: $ sudo apt get install y mongodb org $ mongod To install MongoDB on…
read the full alerta overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is Sentry or alerta more popular?
Sentry has 45,704 GitHub stars and alerta has 2,535. Sentry has the larger community by that measure.
Are Sentry and alerta free?
Both are open source. Sentry has no licence declared in this registry, and alerta is licensed under Apache-2.0. Both are free to self-host.
What is the difference between Sentry and alerta?
Sentry is written in Python and alerta in Python. The practical differences are community size, licence terms, language stack and release cadence — all compared in the table above.
Which should I choose, Sentry or alerta?
Choose Sentry if you want the larger community (45,704 stars) or its Custom / other licence terms. Choose alerta if its feature set, stack or Apache-2.0 licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.