Best / APM and performance monitoring
Best open-source APM and performance monitoring
The best self-hosted APM split in the c17.io catalog is SigNoz for MIT-community OpenTelemetry (the published New Relic / Honeycomb / Dynatrace stack — skip ee/ and cmd/enterprise/), Grafana OSS when the job is AGPL dashboards rather than a unified APM — /compare/signoz-vs-grafana, Prometheus when you want that Apache-2.0 metrics TSDB, and Maple when you want source-available traces, logs, and metrics (FSL-1.1-ALv2, not OSI). This is not Honeycomb's every BubbleUp SKU, Dynatrace's every Davis AI SKU, New Relic's every ingest pack, or Datadog's host meter — /replace/datadog. Errors stay on /best/error-tracking. Logs stay on /best/log-management.
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Ranked picks
1
SigNozMIT-community OpenTelemetry APM (skip ee/) — the c17 New Relic / Honeycomb / Dynatrace path. /compare/signoz-vs-grafana.
When to pick it: Traces, logs, and metrics in one box.
32,448 stars in the catalog
2
GrafanaGrafana OSS dashboards (not Grafana Cloud). /compare/signoz-vs-grafana.
When to pick it: Graphs if the job is not a unified APM.
3
PrometheusApache-2.0 metrics TSDB already named on /stacks/grafana-observability.
When to pick it: Scrapes and alerts, not Honeycomb-shaped traces.
66,637 stars in the catalog
4
mapleSource-available traces, logs, and metrics. License is FSL-1.1-ALv2, not OSI.
When to pick it: A combined box if you accept FSL.
How they compare
| Tool | License | Self-host | Best for |
|---|---|---|---|
| SigNoz | MIT License | Medium | Traces, logs, and metrics in one box. |
| Grafana | Not listed | Medium | Graphs if the job is not a unified APM. |
| Prometheus | Apache License 2.0 | Medium | Scrapes and alerts, not Honeycomb-shaped traces. |
| maple | FSL-1.1-ALv2 | Medium | A combined box if you accept FSL. |
Related pages
- SigNoz stack
- Grafana OSS + Prometheus stack
- GlitchTip stack
- Replace New Relic
- Replace Honeycomb
- Replace Dynatrace
- Replace Datadog
- Replace Grafana Cloud
- Replace Sentry
- Replace Bugsnag
- Replace Rollbar
- Replace Airbrake
- SigNoz vs Grafana
- All best open-source pages
- All compare pages
- All replace pages
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FAQ
- SigNoz or Grafana?
- SigNoz if you want the published New Relic / Honeycomb / Dynatrace APM. Grafana OSS if the job is dashboards — /compare/signoz-vs-grafana.
- Honeycomb or Dynatrace?
- Same published APM — /replace/honeycomb and /replace/dynatrace. New Relic stays on /replace/new-relic.
- Is this Datadog?
- Dashboards and uptime stay on /replace/datadog. This page is traces and a unified ingest.
- Are these free?
- SigNoz community is MIT if you skip ee/. Grafana OSS is AGPL. Prometheus is Apache-2.0. Maple is FSL, not OSI. You pay hosting. Template users never pay c17.
- How do I deploy it?
- Open /stacks/signoz-observability. Persist ClickHouse. Confirm one trace.
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