head to head · open source
Sentry vs rsyslog
Sentry has 44,806 GitHub stars, 4,857 forks, 2,265 open issues and last shipped today. rsyslog has 2,336 stars, 736 forks, 207 open issues and last shipped 4 days ago. Sentry leads on adoption by 1,818% (44,806 vs 2,336 stars). Sentry is written in Python under a custom or non-standard licence; rsyslog is written in C under LGPL-3.0. Sentry has attracted 11% as many forks as stars, rsyslog 32%. 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 | rsyslog | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 45K | ★ 2.3K |
| License | Custom / other | LGPL-3.0 |
| Written in | Python | C |
| Last push | 2026-09-20 | 2026-09-16 |
| Forks | ⑂ 4.9K | ⑂ 736 |
| 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 rsyslog if
- You want the rsyslog feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the LGPL-3.0 license terms
- Your stack matches C
- You evaluated both and rsyslog 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 rsyslog
Rsyslog is a high performance log ingestion and ETL engine written in C and released under the LGPL 3.0, built for operators and engineers who must take in, transform, and route very large volumes of log data from many sources to many destinations.
read the full rsyslog overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is Sentry or rsyslog more popular?
Sentry has 44,806 GitHub stars and rsyslog has 2,336. Sentry has the larger community by that measure.
Are Sentry and rsyslog free?
Both are open source. Sentry has no licence declared in this registry, and rsyslog is licensed under LGPL-3.0. Both are free to self-host.
What is the difference between Sentry and rsyslog?
Sentry is written in Python and rsyslog in C. 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 rsyslog?
Choose Sentry if you want the larger community (44,806 stars) or its Custom / other licence terms. Choose rsyslog if its feature set, stack or LGPL-3.0 licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.