Fulcrum
Fulcrum turns on Insights, its AI assistant for field data, for every customer.
Comparison · Analytics
Highlight vs OpenPanel
A side-by-side editorial comparison of Highlight and OpenPanel — release velocity, themes, recent moves, and the top alternatives to consider.
Highlight vs OpenPanel: at a glance
What is Highlight?
Highlight grew from session replay into SQL-driven observability, then went quiet in August 2025.
Highlight is an open-source observability stack covering session replay, errors, logs, traces and metrics. Its last tagged self-hosted release, docker-v0.5.6, shipped in August 2025 with session-replay performance fixes and session restarts. Nothing has been tagged since.
What is OpenPanel?
OpenPanel reaches 3.9.0 within six days of 3.0.0, still with no release notes.
OpenPanel's self-hosted line went from 3.0.0 on October 16 to 3.9.0 on October 21, with three builds on October 20 alone. Every entry is a build of main with a commit hash and no release notes, shipped to supporters via openpanel upgrade --supporter and published publicly from the self-hosting tag. The last documented changes remain the v2 self-hosting CLI preview and the saved-report filter fix.
Highlight vs OpenPanel: editorial side-by-side
Highlight
0.0ANALYTICS
Highlight grew from session replay into SQL-driven observability, then went quiet in August 2025.
◆ Current state
Highlight is an open-source observability stack covering session replay, errors, logs, traces and metrics. Its last tagged self-hosted release, docker-v0.5.6, shipped in August 2025 with session-replay performance fixes and session restarts. Nothing has been tagged since.
◆ Where it's heading
Through 2025 the releases added OpenTelemetry metrics ingest, a SQL editor and builder for graphs, SQL alerts and dashboards created from log and trace views. That pushed Highlight from a replay tool toward a general telemetry platform. The cadence then slowed from roughly monthly to a two-month gap before stopping.
◆ Prediction
The entries show no release in more than a year, so the self-hosted line's future is unclear. Any new tag would most likely be maintenance on session replay and OTel ingestion.
OpenPanel
5.0ANALYTICS
OpenPanel reaches 3.9.0 within six days of 3.0.0, still with no release notes.
◆ Current state
OpenPanel's self-hosted line went from 3.0.0 on October 16 to 3.9.0 on October 21, with three builds on October 20 alone. Every entry is a build of main with a commit hash and no release notes, shipped to supporters via openpanel upgrade --supporter and published publicly from the self-hosting tag. The last documented changes remain the v2 self-hosting CLI preview and the saved-report filter fix.
◆ Where it's heading
OpenPanel now cuts a versioned build for every merge to main, with paying supporters as the early ring and the rewritten CLI as the delivery channel. Minor numbers rise several times a day, so they measure pipeline throughput rather than product scope. What 3.x changes for analytics users is still undocumented.
◆ Prediction
Expect 3.9.x and 3.10 builds within days at the same notes-free pace. The entries don't show whether 3.x adds analytics features or mostly reworks self-hosting.
Alternatives to Highlight and OpenPanel
Other Analytics products tracked by Sparkpulse, ranked by recent ship velocity. Each card links to a full editorial trajectory and lets you pivot into a head-to-head comparison with either Highlight or OpenPanel.
Holistics
Holistics lets admins put a key dashboard on everyone's Home page.
ThingsBoard
ThingsBoard updates time zone data on three release lines for 2026 daylight saving changes.
Lightdash
Lightdash opens AI-built chart types to every cloud user, through the app or MCP.
Hex
Hex exposes agent usage and credit data as its AI agent becomes a metered product.
ChartMogul
ChartMogul's MRRaudit goes after its own core problem: MRR figures that don't reconcile.
See all Highlight alternatives → · See all OpenPanel alternatives →
Recent activity from Highlight and OpenPanel
Latest ship moves from both products, interleaved chronologically. ⚡ = editorial spark.
- 5d agoOpenPanelOpenPanel 3.9.0 build, no release notes, ships to supporters
- 5d agoOpenPanelOpenPanel 3.8.0 build, no release notes, ships to supporters
- 5d agoOpenPanelOpenPanel 3.7.1 patch build, no release notes, ships to supporters
- 6d agoOpenPanelOpenPanel 3.7.0 build, no release notes, ships to supporters
- 6d agoOpenPanelOpenPanel 3.6.0 build, no release notes, ships to supporters
- 6d agoOpenPanelOpenPanel 3.5.3 build, no release notes, ships to supporters
- 1y agoHighlightdocker-v0.5.6: session replay performance and session restarts
- 1y agoHighlightdocker-v0.5.5: SQL alerts, log downloads, video in replays
- 1y agoHighlightdocker-v0.5.4: SQL joins and graphed error metrics
- 1y agoHighlightdocker-v0.5.3: dashboards and alerts from logs and traces
- 1y agoHighlightdocker-v0.5.2: OTel metrics in the web SDK
- 1y agoHighlightdocker-v0.5.1: SQL editor for graphs and OTel metrics export ⚡
Frequently asked questions
What is the difference between Highlight and OpenPanel?
They serve adjacent needs but don't currently overlap on shipped themes. OpenPanel is currently shipping more aggressively (velocity 5.0 vs 0.0), with 0 editorial sparks in the last 30 days against 0. See the at-a-glance table above for a side-by-side breakdown of velocity, recent sparks, and editorial themes.
Is Highlight better than OpenPanel?
Sparkpulse doesn't pick a winner — we score release velocity, not feature parity. OpenPanel is currently shipping more aggressively (velocity 5.0 vs 0.0), with 0 editorial sparks in the last 30 days against 0. For your specific use case, the alternatives sections above list other Analytics products to evaluate alongside.
What are the best alternatives to Highlight?
Top Highlight alternatives in Analytics are ranked by recent ship velocity. Browse the "Highlight alternatives" section above for the current picks, or visit /alternatives/highlight for the full list with editorial commentary on each.
What are the best alternatives to OpenPanel?
Top OpenPanel alternatives in Analytics are ranked by recent ship velocity. Browse the "OpenPanel alternatives" section above for the current picks, or visit /alternatives/openpanel for the full list with editorial commentary on each.