head to head · open source
Trench vs Workbench
Trench has 1,666 GitHub stars, 66 forks, 3 open issues and last shipped 7 months ago. Workbench has 454 stars, 47 forks, 31 open issues and last shipped 5 months ago. Trench leads on adoption by 267% (1,666 vs 454 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 | ★ 454 |
| License | MIT | MIT |
| Written in | TypeScript | TypeScript |
| Last push | 2026-04-06 | 2026-06-01 |
| Forks | ⑂ 66 | ⑂ 47 |
| 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
Open Source Analytics Infrastructure Documentation · Website · Slack Community · Demo 🌊 What is Trench? Trench is an event tracking system built on top of Apache Kafka and ClickHouse. It can handle large event volumes and provides real time analytics. Trench is no cookie, GDPR, and PECR compliant. Users have full control to access, rectify, or delete their data. Our team built Trench to scale up the real time event tracking pipeline at Frigade . ⭐ Features 🤝 Compliant with the Segment API (Track, Group, Identify) 🐳 Deploy quickly with a single production ready Docker image 💻 Process thousands of events per…
read the full Trench overview →
About Workbench
Workbench Open source BullMQ dashboard. Drop in for any Node or Bun backend. Workbench is a modern dashboard for BullMQ. Runs jobs, flows, schedulers and metrics, all served from your own backend behind your own auth. Zero infrastructure — mounts as a route in your existing app, or run as a standalone Docker container Adapters for Hono, Elysia, Express, Fastify, Koa, NestJS, AdonisJS, Next.js, TanStack Start, Astro, Nuxt, Bun.serve, and h3 Standalone image on GHCR ( ghcr.io/ /workbench standalone ) for Docker / Kubernetes deployments MCP server for Cursor, Claude Desktop, Zed, and Continue.dev — drive your…
read the full Workbench overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is Trench or Workbench more popular?
Trench has 1,666 GitHub stars and Workbench has 454. 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 (1,666 stars) or its MIT licence terms. Choose Workbench if its feature set, stack or MIT licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.