head to head · open source
worldmonitor vs subtrace
worldmonitor has 86,752 GitHub stars, 13,161 forks, 313 open issues and last shipped today. subtrace has 3,099 stars, 86 forks, 15 open issues and last shipped 8 months ago. worldmonitor leads on adoption by 2,699% (86,752 vs 3,099 stars). worldmonitor is written in TypeScript under AGPL-3.0; subtrace is written in Go under BSD-3-Clause. worldmonitor has attracted 15% as many forks as stars, subtrace 3%. worldmonitor was the more recently maintained of the two, and both are self-hostable with no licence fee. The two share 1 topic tag (monitoring), 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
| worldmonitor | subtrace | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 87K | ★ 3.1K |
| License | AGPL-3.0 | BSD-3-Clause |
| Written in | TypeScript | Go |
| Last push | 2026-09-18 | 2026-01-28 |
| Forks | ⑂ 13K | ⑂ 86 |
| Self-hosting | Yes | Yes |
| Data ownership | Your server | Your server |
pick worldmonitor if
- You weight community size — 87K stars and counting
- You want the AGPL-3.0 license terms
- Your stack matches TypeScript
- You value the larger contributor base for long-term maintenance
pick subtrace if
- You want the subtrace feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the BSD-3-Clause license terms
- Your stack matches Go
- You evaluated both and subtrace fits your workflow better
About worldmonitor
World Monitor is an open source, real time global intelligence dashboard in TypeScript that aggregates news with AI, monitors geopolitics and infrastructure, and unifies all of it into a single situational awareness interface for analysts, journalists, researchers, and operations teams who need cross domain awareness they can self host.
read the full worldmonitor overview →
About subtrace
Subtrace Inspect HTTP requests in any server with just a single command. Linux macOS Currently in private beta. Join the waitlist if you primarily use macOS for development! Resources Docs Discord Guides Docker Docker Compose Kubernetes Quickstart
read the full subtrace overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is worldmonitor or subtrace more popular?
worldmonitor has 86,752 GitHub stars and subtrace has 3,099. worldmonitor has the larger community by that measure.
Are worldmonitor and subtrace free?
Both are open source. worldmonitor is licensed under AGPL-3.0 and subtrace under BSD-3-Clause. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between worldmonitor and subtrace?
worldmonitor is written in TypeScript and subtrace 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, worldmonitor or subtrace?
Choose worldmonitor if you want the larger community (86,752 stars) or its AGPL-3.0 licence terms. Choose subtrace if its feature set, stack or BSD-3-Clause licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.