head to head · open source
Tracecat vs tenzir
Tracecat has 3,806 GitHub stars, 418 forks, 137 open issues and last shipped 2 days ago. tenzir has 759 stars, 109 forks, 0 open issues and last shipped 2 days ago. Tracecat leads on adoption by 401% (3,806 vs 759 stars). Tracecat is written in Python under AGPL-3.0; tenzir is written in C++ under BSD-3-Clause. Tracecat has attracted 11% as many forks as stars, tenzir 14%. Tracecat was the more recently maintained of the two, and both are self-hostable with no licence fee. The two share 2 topic tags (incident-response, security), 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
| Tracecat | tenzir | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 3.8K | ★ 759 |
| License | AGPL-3.0 | BSD-3-Clause |
| Written in | Python | C++ |
| Last push | 2026-09-18 | 2026-09-18 |
| Forks | ⑂ 418 | ⑂ 109 |
| Self-hosting | Yes | Yes |
| Data ownership | Your server | Your server |
pick Tracecat if
- You weight community size — 3.8K stars and counting
- You want the AGPL-3.0 license terms
- Your stack matches Python
- You value the larger contributor base for long-term maintenance
pick tenzir if
- You want the tenzir feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the BSD-3-Clause license terms
- Your stack matches C++
- You evaluated both and tenzir fits your workflow better
About Tracecat
Tracecat is an open source security automation platform for teams and AI agents. It lives in the security operations and incident response ecosystem, combining agents, workflows, lookup tables, and case management in one Python application. The project is licensed under AGPL 3.0, with a separate paid Enterprise Edition directory and feature gates.
read the full Tracecat overview →
About tenzir
Tenzir is a data pipeline engine for security teams — written in C++ and released under the BSD 3 Clause licence — that lets SOC analysts, detection engineers, and incident responders collect, transform, enrich, and route security telemetry instead of only storing it.
read the full tenzir overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is Tracecat or tenzir more popular?
Tracecat has 3,806 GitHub stars and tenzir has 759. Tracecat has the larger community by that measure.
Are Tracecat and tenzir free?
Both are open source. Tracecat is licensed under AGPL-3.0 and tenzir under BSD-3-Clause. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between Tracecat and tenzir?
Tracecat is written in Python and tenzir 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, Tracecat or tenzir?
Choose Tracecat if you want the larger community (3,806 stars) or its AGPL-3.0 licence terms. Choose tenzir if its feature set, stack or BSD-3-Clause licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.