head to head · open source
Sentry vs databuff
Sentry has 44,806 GitHub stars, 4,857 forks, 2,265 open issues and last shipped today. databuff has 683 stars, 136 forks, 11 open issues and last shipped 4 days ago. Sentry leads on adoption by 6,460% (44,806 vs 683 stars). Sentry is written in Python under a custom or non-standard licence; databuff is written in Java under AGPL-3.0. Sentry has attracted 11% as many forks as stars, databuff 20%. 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, 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 | databuff | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 45K | ★ 683 |
| License | Custom / other | AGPL-3.0 |
| Written in | Python | Java |
| Last push | 2026-09-20 | 2026-09-16 |
| Forks | ⑂ 4.9K | ⑂ 136 |
| Self-hosting | Yes | Yes |
| Data ownership | Your server | Your server |
pick Sentry if
- You weight community size — 45K 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 databuff if
- You want the databuff feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the AGPL-3.0 license terms
- Your stack matches Java
- You evaluated both and databuff fits your workflow better
About Sentry
Sentry is an open source debugging platform for detecting, tracing, and fixing software issues in real time. It lives in the developer infrastructure ecosystem and provides error tracking and performance monitoring across languages, frameworks, and runtime environments.
read the full Sentry overview →
About databuff
DataBuff is an AI native APM backend built on OpenTelemetry that ingests traces, metrics and logs over OTLP and ships with multi agent AI troubleshooting out of the box, aimed at teams that self host observability for microservices.
read the full databuff overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is Sentry or databuff more popular?
Sentry has 44,806 GitHub stars and databuff has 683. Sentry has the larger community by that measure.
Are Sentry and databuff free?
Both are open source. Sentry has no licence declared in this registry, and databuff is licensed under AGPL-3.0. Both are free to self-host.
What is the difference between Sentry and databuff?
Sentry is written in Python and databuff in Java. 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 databuff?
Choose Sentry if you want the larger community (44,806 stars) or its Custom / other licence terms. Choose databuff if its feature set, stack or AGPL-3.0 licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.