head to head · open source
witr vs Checkmate
witr has 22,374 GitHub stars, 781 forks, 17 open issues and last shipped 1 months ago. Checkmate has 10,830 stars, 1,200 forks, 114 open issues and last shipped yesterday. witr leads on adoption by 107% (22,374 vs 10,830 stars). witr is written in Go under Apache-2.0; Checkmate is written in TypeScript under AGPL-3.0. witr has attracted 3% as many forks as stars, Checkmate 11%. Checkmate was the more recently maintained of the two, and both are self-hostable with no licence fee.
Two open source projects, one decision. Both are free and self-hostable — the differences are community size, license terms, language stack and release pace.
← all 8884 open source comparisons
Side by side
| witr | Checkmate | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 22K | ★ 11K |
| License | Apache-2.0 | AGPL-3.0 |
| Written in | Go | TypeScript |
| Last push | 2026-08-15 | 2026-09-17 |
| Forks | ⑂ 781 | ⑂ 1.2K |
| Self-hosting | Yes | Yes |
| Data ownership | Your server | Your server |
pick witr if
- You weight community size — 22K stars and counting
- You want the Apache-2.0 license terms
- Your stack matches Go
- You value the larger contributor base for long-term maintenance
pick Checkmate if
- You want the Checkmate feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the AGPL-3.0 license terms
- Your stack matches TypeScript
- You evaluated both and Checkmate fits your workflow better
About witr
witr is an open source, Apache 2.0 licensed Go tool with both a command line interface and an interactive terminal UI that traces any process, port, container, or file back to the exact chain of systems that started it, and it is built for operators, SREs, and developers who need to answer "why is this running?" during debugging and incident response.
About Checkmate
Checkmate is an open source, self hosted monitoring application for infrastructure and observability. It is written in TypeScript and released under the AGPL 3.0 license. The repository contains the frontend and backend, and the project sits in the infrastructure monitoring ecosystem for teams that need to track servers, websites, and hardware status without relying on a hosted only product.
read the full Checkmate overview →
More in Infrastructure & Operations
Related comparisons
More Monitoring & Observability projects
Compare either of these against the rest of the Monitoring & Observability field.
Frequently asked questions
Is witr or Checkmate more popular?
witr has 22,374 GitHub stars and Checkmate has 10,830. witr has the larger community by that measure.
Are witr and Checkmate free?
Both are open source. witr is licensed under Apache-2.0 and Checkmate under AGPL-3.0. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between witr and Checkmate?
witr is written in Go and Checkmate 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, witr or Checkmate?
Choose witr if you want the larger community (22,374 stars) or its Apache-2.0 licence terms. Choose Checkmate if its feature set, stack or AGPL-3.0 licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.