head to head · open source
Sentry vs pg_activity
Sentry has 44,806 GitHub stars, 4,857 forks, 2,265 open issues and last shipped today. pg_activity has 3,038 stars, 190 forks, 16 open issues and last shipped 2 months ago. Sentry leads on adoption by 1,375% (44,806 vs 3,038 stars). Sentry is written in Python under a custom or non-standard licence; pg_activity is written in Python under PostgreSQL. Sentry has attracted 11% as many forks as stars, pg_activity 6%. 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 | pg_activity | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 45K | ★ 3.0K |
| License | Custom / other | PostgreSQL |
| Written in | Python | Python |
| Last push | 2026-09-20 | 2026-08-01 |
| Forks | ⑂ 4.9K | ⑂ 190 |
| 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 pg_activity if
- You want the pg_activity feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the PostgreSQL license terms
- Your stack matches Python
- You evaluated both and pg_activity 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 pg_activity
pg activity is a top like command line tool for PostgreSQL server activity monitoring, built for database administrators, on call engineers, and developers who need real time visibility into what queries and sessions a PostgreSQL instance is running.
read the full pg_activity overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is Sentry or pg_activity more popular?
Sentry has 44,806 GitHub stars and pg_activity has 3,038. Sentry has the larger community by that measure.
Are Sentry and pg_activity free?
Both are open source. Sentry has no licence declared in this registry, and pg_activity is licensed under PostgreSQL. Both are free to self-host.
What is the difference between Sentry and pg_activity?
Sentry is written in Python and pg_activity 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 pg_activity?
Choose Sentry if you want the larger community (44,806 stars) or its Custom / other licence terms. Choose pg_activity if its feature set, stack or PostgreSQL licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.