head to head · open source
witr vs kubeshark
witr has 22,404 GitHub stars, 783 forks, 17 open issues and last shipped 1 months ago. kubeshark has 12,082 stars, 549 forks, 149 open issues and last shipped 11 days ago. witr leads on adoption by 85% (22,404 vs 12,082 stars). witr is written in Go under Apache-2.0; kubeshark is written in Go under Apache-2.0. witr has attracted 3% as many forks as stars, kubeshark 5%. kubeshark was the more recently maintained of the two, and both are self-hostable with no licence fee. The two share 5 topic tags (devops, docker, golang, incident-response), 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.
← all 20902 open source comparisons
Side by side
| witr | kubeshark | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 22K | ★ 12K |
| License | Apache-2.0 | Apache-2.0 |
| Written in | Go | Go |
| Last push | 2026-08-15 | 2026-09-09 |
| Forks | ⑂ 783 | ⑂ 549 |
| 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 kubeshark if
- You want the kubeshark feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the Apache-2.0 license terms
- Your stack matches Go
- You evaluated both and kubeshark 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 kubeshark
Kubeshark is an Apache 2.0, eBPF powered network observability tool for Kubernetes that indexes cluster wide L4/L7 traffic with full Kubernetes context and makes that traffic queryable by AI agents through the Model Context Protocol and by humans through a real time dashboard.
read the full kubeshark 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 kubeshark more popular?
witr has 22,404 GitHub stars and kubeshark has 12,082. witr has the larger community by that measure.
Are witr and kubeshark free?
Both are open source. witr is licensed under Apache-2.0 and kubeshark under Apache-2.0. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between witr and kubeshark?
witr is written in Go and kubeshark in Go. 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 kubeshark?
Choose witr if you want the larger community (22,404 stars) or its Apache-2.0 licence terms. Choose kubeshark if its feature set, stack or Apache-2.0 licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.