head to head · open source
Sentry vs viztracer
Sentry has 44,806 GitHub stars, 4,857 forks, 2,265 open issues and last shipped today. viztracer has 7,746 stars, 475 forks, 33 open issues and last shipped 2 days ago. Sentry leads on adoption by 478% (44,806 vs 7,746 stars). Sentry is written in Python under a custom or non-standard licence; viztracer is written in Python under Apache-2.0. Sentry has attracted 11% as many forks as stars, viztracer 6%. 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.
← all 20902 open source comparisons
Side by side
| Sentry | viztracer | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 45K | ★ 7.7K |
| License | Custom / other | Apache-2.0 |
| Written in | Python | Python |
| Last push | 2026-09-20 | 2026-09-18 |
| Forks | ⑂ 4.9K | ⑂ 475 |
| 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 viztracer if
- You want the viztracer feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the Apache-2.0 license terms
- Your stack matches Python
- You evaluated both and viztracer 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 viztracer
VizTracer is a low overhead Python tracing, debugging and profiling tool that records code execution and renders it as an interactive timeline with source code, built for Python developers who need to see what their scripts, threads, subprocesses, async tasks and PyTorch calls are actually doing.
read the full viztracer overview →
More in Infrastructure & Operations
Related comparisons
More Monitoring & Observability projects
Compare either of these against the rest of the Monitoring & Observability field.
Frequently asked questions
Is Sentry or viztracer more popular?
Sentry has 44,806 GitHub stars and viztracer has 7,746. Sentry has the larger community by that measure.
Are Sentry and viztracer free?
Both are open source. Sentry has no licence declared in this registry, and viztracer is licensed under Apache-2.0. Both are free to self-host.
What is the difference between Sentry and viztracer?
Sentry is written in Python and viztracer 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 viztracer?
Choose Sentry if you want the larger community (44,806 stars) or its Custom / other licence terms. Choose viztracer if its feature set, stack or Apache-2.0 licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.