head to head · open source
SigNoz vs m3
SigNoz has 32,528 GitHub stars, 2,575 forks, 1,557 open issues and last shipped yesterday. m3 has 4,909 stars, 461 forks, 222 open issues and last shipped yesterday. SigNoz leads on adoption by 563% (32,528 vs 4,909 stars). SigNoz is written in TypeScript under a custom or non-standard licence; m3 is written in Go under Apache-2.0. SigNoz has attracted 8% as many forks as stars, m3 9%. SigNoz was the more recently maintained of the two, and both are self-hostable with no licence fee. The two share 1 topic tag (metrics), 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
| SigNoz | m3 | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 33K | ★ 4.9K |
| License | Custom / other | Apache-2.0 |
| Written in | TypeScript | Go |
| Last push | 2026-11-04 | 2026-11-04 |
| Forks | ⑂ 2.6K | ⑂ 461 |
| Self-hosting | Yes | Yes |
| Data ownership | Your server | Your server |
pick SigNoz if
- You weight community size — 33K stars and counting
- You want the Custom / other license terms
- Your stack matches TypeScript
- You value the larger contributor base for long-term maintenance
pick m3 if
- You want the m3 feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the Apache-2.0 license terms
- Your stack matches Go
- You evaluated both and m3 fits your workflow better
About SigNoz
中文 · Deutsch · Português SigNoz is an open source observability platform built on OpenTelemetry. We’re building an enterprise grade alternative to fragmented monitoring stacks, with logs, metrics, traces, alerts, and dashboards in one place. Choose how to run SigNoz SigNoz Cloud (Recommended) Fully managed SigNoz with a 30 day free trial, no credit card required, usage based pricing that starts at $49, and regional data hosting. Start free → Enterprise Enterprise Cloud, BYOC, or Enterprise Self Hosted with compliance, support, custom retention, RBAC, ingestion controls, data residency, and region selection…
read the full SigNoz overview →
About m3
M3 [![GoDoc][doc img]][doc] [![Build Status][ci img]][ci] [![FOSSA Status][fossa img]][fossa] Distributed TSDB and Query Engine, Prometheus Sidecar, Metrics Aggregator, and more such as Graphite storage and query engine. Table of Contents More Information Install Dependencies Usage Contributing More Information Documentation Contributing Slack Forum (Google Group) Community Meetings You can find recordings of past meetups here: . Install Dependencies The simplest and quickest way to try M3 is to use Docker, read the M3 quickstart section for other options. This example uses jq to format the output of API calls…
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Frequently asked questions
Is SigNoz or m3 more popular?
SigNoz has 32,528 GitHub stars and m3 has 4,909. SigNoz has the larger community by that measure.
Are SigNoz and m3 free?
Both are open source. SigNoz has no licence declared in this registry, and m3 is licensed under Apache-2.0. Both are free to self-host.
What is the difference between SigNoz and m3?
SigNoz is written in TypeScript and m3 in Go. The practical differences are community size, licence terms, language stack and release cadence — all compared in the table above.
Which should I choose, SigNoz or m3?
Choose SigNoz if you want the larger community (32,528 stars) or its Custom / other licence terms. Choose m3 if its feature set, stack or Apache-2.0 licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.