🩺 Vitals
- 🟢 Last active: 2026-08-05
- 📦 Latest release: v0.135.1 (2026-07-31)
- 🐞 Open issues: 1485
- 🌟 Stars: 31.8k
What do these metrics mean?
- Last active: when code was last pushed, as of our last check. The dot is green when that was recent, grey otherwise. A long gap can mean a tool is finished and stable, not only unmaintained.
- Latest release: the most recent tagged, packaged version the maintainers published. Not every healthy project tags releases.
- Open issues: unresolved reports and requests. A high number is normal for a popular project and is not a warning on its own.
- Stars: how many people bookmarked the project on its forge. A rough popularity signal, not a measure of quality.
🏗️ Profile
- Official: signoz.io
- Source: github.com/SigNoz/signoz
- License: MIT (Core) | Custom (Enterprise Edition)
- Deployment: Docker | Kubernetes
- Data Model: ClickHouse (Columnar OLAP)
- Jurisdiction: USA 🇺🇸 (SigNoz Inc.)
- Compliance (SaaS): SOC 2 Type II | HIPAA
- Compliance (Self-Hosted): HIPAA Eligible
- Complexity: High (4/5) - Distributed ClickHouse cluster; requires dedicated DevOps bandwidth
- Maintenance: Medium (3/5) - ClickHouse storage tuning and OTel collector management required
- Enterprise Ready: Moderate (3/5) - Basic auth included; SAML SSO and fine-grained RBAC require paid Enterprise Edition
1. The Executive Summary
What is it? SigNoz is an open-core full-stack observability platform that unifies APM, logs, and distributed tracing into a single OpenTelemetry-native interface. Developed by SigNoz Inc. (USA) and VC-backed, it is purpose-built as a self-hostable alternative to DataDog, replacing per-host, per-GB, and per-custom-metric pricing with owned ClickHouse storage. The MIT-licensed community core is fully functional; SAML/OIDC SSO, fine-grained RBAC, and Ingest Guard are gated behind the proprietary Enterprise Edition.
The Strategic Verdict:
- 🔴 For Teams Needing Enterprise SSO or Strict RBAC from Day One: Caution. SAML 2.0 and OIDC SSO are paywalled in the Enterprise Edition. Evaluate the commercial cost before assuming the community edition meets your access control baseline. Google Workspace OAuth2 was recently moved to the community tier, but SAML remains gated.
- 🟢 For Engineering Teams Escaping DataDog's Pricing Model: Strong Buy. ClickHouse storage eliminates per-host fees, log ingestion taxes, and custom metric charges in a single move. OpenTelemetry-native architecture means zero instrumentation lock-in: telemetry pipelines reroute to any backend with no application code changes.
2. The "Hidden" Costs (TCO Analysis)
| Cost Component | DataDog (SaaS) | SigNoz (Self-Hosted) |
|---|---|---|
| Host Fees | $15–$23/host/mo | Unlimited hosts |
| Log Ingestion | $0.10/GB tax | $0 (owned storage) |
| Custom Metrics | Per-metric surcharge | Unlimited metrics |
| Data Retention | Costly beyond 30 days | Cheap (disk / S3) |
3. The "Day 2" Reality Check
🚀 Deployment & Operations
- Installation: Deployed via Helm charts on Kubernetes. Spins up the Query Service, OpenTelemetry Collector, and ClickHouse cluster, the latter requiring careful storage and replication configuration for production workloads.
- Scalability: ClickHouse ingests millions of telemetry events per second on modest hardware. The OpenTelemetry-native architecture guarantees zero instrumentation lock-in: pipelines can be rerouted to any compliant backend with no application changes.
🛡️ Security & Governance (Risk Assessment)
- Jurisdiction & Geopolitics (USA 🇺🇸): SigNoz Inc. is a US corporation (Delaware C-Corp, San Francisco HQ) subject to the CLOUD Act. SaaS telemetry data can be compelled by US government without notifying the data subject. For EU operators under GDPR or NIS2 mandates (where telemetry may contain personal identifiers), self-hosting eliminates CLOUD Act exposure entirely.
- The Compliance Shift: The SigNoz Cloud SaaS tier holds SOC 2 Type II and HIPAA certifications (verified via Trust Center). Self-hosting transfers the full compliance posture to the operator: ClickHouse cluster security, network access policies, and PII scrubbing via OpenTelemetry processors are the operator's responsibility. HIPAA Eligible posture is achievable on self-hosted, but requires deliberate data scrubbing configuration to prevent PHI from entering trace and log storage.
- License Risk (MIT Core + Proprietary Enterprise Edition): The community core is MIT-licensed, permissive and forkable. The Enterprise Edition gates SAML 2.0/OIDC SSO, fine-grained RBAC, and Ingest Guard behind a proprietary commercial licence. The open-core boundary has shifted across releases (Google Workspace OAuth2 previously required Enterprise and was moved to community), demonstrating the vendor's ability to redefine this boundary unilaterally. Single-company contributor base and VC backing amplify the governance risk of future relicensing.
4. Market Landscape
🏢 Proprietary Incumbents
- DataDog: The dominant cloud observability SaaS. Per-host, per-log-GB, and per-custom-metric pricing compounds dramatically at scale; all telemetry transits DataDog's US-managed infrastructure with no self-hosting option.
- New Relic: Full-stack observability SaaS with consumption-based pricing. No self-hosting option; data residency options are limited compared to a fully sovereign self-hosted stack.
🤝 Open Source Ecosystem
- Grafana: The primary open-source observability alternative: more modular than SigNoz but operationally more complex, requiring independent configuration of metrics, logs, and traces pipelines.
- Uptime Kuma: A lightweight companion for external availability and uptime monitoring, covering the synthetic check layer that SigNoz does not natively address.