{"data":{"slug":"vector","name":"Vector","tagline":"MPL-2.0 logs/metrics/traces data plane vs OTel Collector/Alloy","category":"observability","categoryName":"Observability","url":"https://vector.dev","github":"https://github.com/vectordotdev/vector","pricing":"open-source","hook":"Vector is the Rust observability data plane when you need transform/route before the backend bill lands.","whatsGood":"High-performance sources to transforms to sinks for logs, metrics, and traces. Single binary, VRL transforms, broad vendor sinks. Strong alternative to OTel Collector pipelines.","theCatch":"MPL-2.0 (file-level copyleft, not MIT/Apache). Datadog-maintained after Timber acquisition - product direction follows Datadog. Distinct from OpenTelemetry Collector and Grafana Alloy.","verdict":"MPL-2.0 obs data plane. Free to run; watch MPL + Datadog stewardship.","addedAt":"2026-09-07","featured":false,"domain":"Observability","subSpecialty":"Pipelines","subcategory":"Pipelines","tags":["self-host","copyleft","vector","observability","active"],"capabilities":["logs","metrics","traces"],"surfaces":["Self-host"],"ecosystem":["Rust","Multi-platform"],"licenseModel":"MPL-2.0","githubStars":22724,"starsPerWeek":53,"access":"free","archived":false,"repo":{"createdAt":"2018-08-27","pushedAt":"2026-10-17","license":"MPL-2.0","archived":false,"checkedAt":"2026-10-19"}},"related":[{"slug":"sentry","name":"Sentry","tagline":"Error tracking that actually helps"},{"slug":"grafana","name":"Grafana","tagline":"Dashboards for everything observable"},{"slug":"prometheus","name":"Prometheus","tagline":"Time-series metrics for cloud-native"},{"slug":"opentelemetry","name":"OpenTelemetry","tagline":"Vendor-neutral observability framework"},{"slug":"datadog","name":"Datadog","tagline":"Unified observability platform"}],"links":{"self":"/api/gems/vector","html":"/gems/vector","markdown":"/gems/vector.md","category":"/api/gems?category=observability","categoryPage":"/stacks/observability"}}