head to head · open source
Sequin vs Trench
Sequin has 2,203 GitHub stars, 149 forks, 71 open issues and last shipped 7 months ago. Trench has 1,663 stars, 64 forks, 3 open issues and last shipped 6 months ago. Sequin leads on adoption by 32% (2,203 vs 1,663 stars). Sequin is written in Elixir under MIT; Trench is written in TypeScript under MIT. Sequin has attracted 7% as many forks as stars, Trench 4%. Trench was the more recently maintained of the two, and both are self-hostable with no licence fee. The two share 1 topic tag (kafka), 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
| Sequin | Trench | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 2.2K | ★ 1.7K |
| License | MIT | MIT |
| Written in | Elixir | TypeScript |
| Last push | 2026-02-23 | 2026-04-06 |
| Forks | ⑂ 149 | ⑂ 64 |
| Self-hosting | Yes | Yes |
| Data ownership | Your server | Your server |
pick Sequin if
- You weight community size — 2.2K stars and counting
- You want the MIT license terms
- Your stack matches Elixir
- You value the larger contributor base for long-term maintenance
pick Trench if
- You want the Trench feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the MIT license terms
- Your stack matches TypeScript
- You evaluated both and Trench fits your workflow better
About Sequin
Sequin is an open source change data capture platform for Postgres. It lives in the Postgres ecosystem and reads database changes, then sends those changes to streams, queues, search indexes, and other endpoints. The project is written in Elixir and released under the MIT license.
read the full Sequin overview →
About Trench
Trench is an open source analytics infrastructure project written in TypeScript under the MIT license. It is built around Apache Kafka, ClickHouse, and a Node.js based service, and it is distributed as a single production ready Docker image for event tracking. The project sits in the open source event streaming and analytics ecosystem, where teams collect product events, query them quickly, and connect data to dashboards, LLM retrieval pipelines, observability tools, or other analytics products.
read the full Trench overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is Sequin or Trench more popular?
Sequin has 2,203 GitHub stars and Trench has 1,663. Sequin has the larger community by that measure.
Are Sequin and Trench free?
Both are open source. Sequin is licensed under MIT and Trench under MIT. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between Sequin and Trench?
Sequin is written in Elixir and Trench in TypeScript. The practical differences are community size, licence terms, language stack and release cadence — all compared in the table above.
Which should I choose, Sequin or Trench?
Choose Sequin if you want the larger community (2,203 stars) or its MIT licence terms. Choose Trench if its feature set, stack or MIT licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.