head to head · open source
Trench vs Workbench
Trench has 1,663 GitHub stars, 64 forks, 3 open issues and last shipped 6 months ago. Workbench has 442 stars, 43 forks, 31 open issues and last shipped 4 months ago. Trench leads on adoption by 276% (1,663 vs 442 stars). Trench is written in TypeScript under MIT; Workbench is written in TypeScript under MIT. Trench has attracted 4% as many forks as stars, Workbench 10%. Workbench was the more recently maintained of the two, and both are self-hostable with no licence fee. The two share 1 topic tag (dashboard), 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
| Trench | Workbench | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 1.7K | ★ 442 |
| License | MIT | MIT |
| Written in | TypeScript | TypeScript |
| Last push | 2026-04-06 | 2026-06-01 |
| Forks | ⑂ 64 | ⑂ 43 |
| Self-hosting | Yes | Yes |
| Data ownership | Your server | Your server |
pick Trench if
- You weight community size — 1.7K stars and counting
- You want the MIT license terms
- Your stack matches TypeScript
- You value the larger contributor base for long-term maintenance
pick Workbench if
- You want the Workbench feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the MIT license terms
- Your stack matches TypeScript
- You evaluated both and Workbench fits your workflow better
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 →
About Workbench
Workbench is an open source, MIT licensed dashboard for BullMQ that lets Node.js and Bun teams inspect, debug, and replay Redis backed job queues from inside their own backend, behind their own authentication.
read the full Workbench overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is Trench or Workbench more popular?
Trench has 1,663 GitHub stars and Workbench has 442. Trench has the larger community by that measure.
Are Trench and Workbench free?
Both are open source. Trench is licensed under MIT and Workbench under MIT. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between Trench and Workbench?
Trench is written in TypeScript and Workbench 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, Trench or Workbench?
Choose Trench if you want the larger community (1,663 stars) or its MIT licence terms. Choose Workbench if its feature set, stack or MIT licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.