head to head · open source
Sentry vs sysstat
Sentry has 44,806 GitHub stars, 4,857 forks, 2,265 open issues and last shipped today. sysstat has 3,367 stars, 489 forks, 75 open issues and last shipped 8 days ago. Sentry leads on adoption by 1,231% (44,806 vs 3,367 stars). Sentry is written in Python under a custom or non-standard licence; sysstat is written in C under GPL-2.0. Sentry has attracted 11% as many forks as stars, sysstat 15%. 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 | sysstat | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 45K | ★ 3.4K |
| License | Custom / other | GPL-2.0 |
| Written in | Python | C |
| Last push | 2026-09-20 | 2026-09-12 |
| Forks | ⑂ 4.9K | ⑂ 489 |
| 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 sysstat if
- You want the sysstat feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the GPL-2.0 license terms
- Your stack matches C
- You evaluated both and sysstat 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 sysstat
sysstat is a GPL 2.0 licensed collection of C utilities that report and historize Linux system performance data, built for system administrators, SREs, and performance engineers who need per device, per CPU, and per process measurements on hosts they control.
read the full sysstat overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is Sentry or sysstat more popular?
Sentry has 44,806 GitHub stars and sysstat has 3,367. Sentry has the larger community by that measure.
Are Sentry and sysstat free?
Both are open source. Sentry has no licence declared in this registry, and sysstat is licensed under GPL-2.0. Both are free to self-host.
What is the difference between Sentry and sysstat?
Sentry is written in Python and sysstat 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 sysstat?
Choose Sentry if you want the larger community (44,806 stars) or its Custom / other licence terms. Choose sysstat if its feature set, stack or GPL-2.0 licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.