head to head · open source
Sentry vs Highlight
Sentry has 44,806 GitHub stars, 4,857 forks, 2,265 open issues and last shipped today. Highlight has 9,375 stars, 676 forks, 553 open issues and last shipped 1 months ago. Sentry leads on adoption by 378% (44,806 vs 9,375 stars). Sentry is written in Python under a custom or non-standard licence; Highlight is written in TypeScript under a custom or non-standard licence. Sentry has attracted 11% as many forks as stars, Highlight 7%. Sentry was the more recently maintained of the two, and both are self-hostable with no licence fee. The two share 2 topic tags (apm, 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 | Highlight | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 45K | ★ 9.4K |
| License | Custom / other | Custom / other |
| Written in | Python | TypeScript |
| Last push | 2026-09-20 | 2026-08-20 |
| Forks | ⑂ 4.9K | ⑂ 676 |
| 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 Highlight if
- You want the Highlight feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the Custom / other license terms
- Your stack matches TypeScript
- You evaluated both and Highlight 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 Highlight
Highlight is an open source, full stack monitoring platform for modern web applications. It lives in the Infrastructure & Operations / Monitoring & Observability ecosystem, and its repository lists TypeScript, Golang, APM, metrics, tracing, and self hosted as topics.
read the full Highlight overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is Sentry or Highlight more popular?
Sentry has 44,806 GitHub stars and Highlight has 9,375. Sentry has the larger community by that measure.
Are Sentry and Highlight free?
Neither Sentry nor Highlight declares a licence in this registry, so check each project's own repository before relying on either for a commercial use. Both are free to self-host.
What is the difference between Sentry and Highlight?
Sentry is written in Python and Highlight in TypeScript. 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 Highlight?
Choose Sentry if you want the larger community (44,806 stars) or its Custom / other licence terms. Choose Highlight if its feature set, stack or Custom / other licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.