head to head · open source
Sentry vs apm-agent-nodejs
Sentry has 45,704 GitHub stars, 4,959 forks, 2,265 open issues and last shipped yesterday. apm-agent-nodejs has 594 stars, 245 forks, 361 open issues and last shipped 2 days ago. Sentry leads on adoption by 7,594% (45,704 vs 594 stars). Sentry is written in Python under a custom or non-standard licence; apm-agent-nodejs is written in JavaScript under BSD-2-Clause. Sentry has attracted 11% as many forks as stars, apm-agent-nodejs 41%. Sentry was the more recently maintained of the two, and both are self-hostable with no licence fee. The two share 3 topic tags (apm, devops, error-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 | apm-agent-nodejs | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 46K | ★ 594 |
| License | Custom / other | BSD-2-Clause |
| Written in | Python | JavaScript |
| Last push | 2026-11-04 | 2026-11-03 |
| Forks | ⑂ 5.0K | ⑂ 245 |
| 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 apm-agent-nodejs if
- You want the apm-agent-nodejs feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the BSD-2-Clause license terms
- Your stack matches JavaScript
- You evaluated both and apm-agent-nodejs 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 apm-agent-nodejs
Elastic APM Node.js Agent This is the official Node.js application performance monitoring (APM) agent for the Elastic Observability solution. It is a Node.js package that runs with your Node.js application to automatically capture errors, tracing data, and performance metrics. APM data is sent to your Elastic Observability deployment hosted in Elastic's cloud or in your own on premises deployment where you can monitor your application, create alerts, and quick identify root causes of service issues. If you have any feedback or questions, please post them on the Discuss forum. Installation Getting started First…
read the full apm-agent-nodejs overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is Sentry or apm-agent-nodejs more popular?
Sentry has 45,704 GitHub stars and apm-agent-nodejs has 594. Sentry has the larger community by that measure.
Are Sentry and apm-agent-nodejs free?
Both are open source. Sentry has no licence declared in this registry, and apm-agent-nodejs is licensed under BSD-2-Clause. Both are free to self-host.
What is the difference between Sentry and apm-agent-nodejs?
Sentry is written in Python and apm-agent-nodejs in JavaScript. 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 apm-agent-nodejs?
Choose Sentry if you want the larger community (45,704 stars) or its Custom / other licence terms. Choose apm-agent-nodejs if its feature set, stack or BSD-2-Clause licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.