GlitchTip
Open source error tracking, compatible with the official Sentry SDKs. You swap the DSN in your app and errors land on your own server, without touching a line of code. MIT licence, Docker Compose install with PostgreSQL.
Strengths
- Migration without a rewrite: the official Sentry SDKs report to GlitchTip as is, only the DSN changes
- Four components to run (app, workers, PostgreSQL, optional cache), against a far heavier stack for self-hosted Sentry
- Tiny server footprint: the docs state 512 MB of RAM recommended, it fits on the VPS you already have
- MIT licence and uncapped volume when self-hosted: cost stops being indexed on how many errors your app produces
Limitations
- You become responsible for a service holding your production traces: PostgreSQL backups, security patches, uptime. The day it goes down, you are blind on production
- A deliberately narrower scope than Sentry: Session Replay is absent from the documentation, and triage comfort lags behind
- Annual major upgrades with possible breaking changes: read the release notes before pulling the new image, or the database migration breaks
- A project carried by a small team: if the need turns business critical, there is no support contract to fall back on
Best for
- Chatty applications where per-event billing on Sentry gets absurd relative to the value of the signal
- Contexts where production traces cannot leave the perimeter, for regulatory or contractual reasons
- Teams already running a server and a PostgreSQL: the marginal cost of one more component is low for them