Trench

What Trench is

Trench is open-source infrastructure for real-time event tracking and analytics. Built on Apache Kafka and ClickHouse, it supports event collection, processing, querying, and routing. Users can query data as it arrives through SQL or REST, and send data to other destinations through throttled webhooks. Trench supports the Segment specification, including Track, Identify, and Group. The project says it can process thousands of events per second on a single node using Kafka.

Trench provides a production-ready Docker image containing Kafka, ClickHouse, and the application. It is designed for self-hosting, and the Open Source plan can run on any cloud provider. The software is available under the MIT License, and the site describes it as GDPR compliant. Open Source costs nothing, has no usage limits, and includes community support through Slack. Enterprise uses volume-based pricing and lists dedicated infrastructure, a dedicated support engineer, 24/7 phone and email support, on-premises deployment, SAML 2.0 SSO, and third-party integrations. The team says it created Trench after its Postgres event-tracking table became costly and a performance bottleneck while serving millions of end users.

Who it suits

Trench suits teams building server-side event collection and routing workflows who can self-host infrastructure. Its Enterprise offering may suit organizations seeking dedicated infrastructure and support.

Getting started

1. Visit the Trench website.
2. Choose the Open Source plan to self-host on a cloud provider, or review the Enterprise offering.
3. Use Trench’s production-ready Docker image, which includes Kafka, ClickHouse and the application.
4. For community assistance, use the Slack community.

Verdict

Trench provides self-hosted event tracking, querying, and routing with an open-source plan and a separate Enterprise option. Teams should weigh its self-hosted deployment model and support needs.