head to head · open source
Sentry vs debug
Sentry has 44,806 GitHub stars, 4,857 forks, 2,265 open issues and last shipped today. debug has 11,456 stars, 992 forks, 96 open issues and last shipped 6 months ago. Sentry leads on adoption by 291% (44,806 vs 11,456 stars). Sentry is written in Python under a custom or non-standard licence; debug is written in JavaScript under MIT. Sentry has attracted 11% as many forks as stars, debug 9%. Sentry was the more recently maintained of the two, and both are self-hostable with no licence fee.
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 | debug | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 45K | ★ 11K |
| License | Custom / other | MIT |
| Written in | Python | JavaScript |
| Last push | 2026-09-20 | 2026-04-01 |
| Forks | ⑂ 4.9K | ⑂ 992 |
| 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 debug if
- You want the debug feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the MIT license terms
- Your stack matches JavaScript
- You evaluated both and debug 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 debug
debug is a tiny, MIT licensed JavaScript debugging utility modelled after Node.js core's debugging technique, and it is aimed at JavaScript developers and library authors who want to turn debug output on and off by namespace instead of editing or deleting logging statements.
read the full debug overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is Sentry or debug more popular?
Sentry has 44,806 GitHub stars and debug has 11,456. Sentry has the larger community by that measure.
Are Sentry and debug free?
Both are open source. Sentry has no licence declared in this registry, and debug is licensed under MIT. Both are free to self-host.
What is the difference between Sentry and debug?
Sentry is written in Python and debug 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 debug?
Choose Sentry if you want the larger community (44,806 stars) or its Custom / other licence terms. Choose debug if its feature set, stack or MIT licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.