Overview:
Trench is an open-source event tracking system built on Apache Kafka and ClickHouse for real-time analytics. It processes high event volumes while being no-cookie, GDPR, and PECR compliant, giving users full control over accessing, rectifying, or deleting their data. Designed by Frigade to scale real-time event tracking pipelines, Trench targets developers and teams who need a deployable analytics infrastructure.
Core Features:
Segment API compliance: Supports Track, Group, and Identify methods from the Segment API.
Real-time querying: Enables live data queries directly via the
/eventsendpoint or through raw SQL.Kafka authentication: Supports SASL and SSL for connecting to authenticated Kafka clusters.
Event forwarding via webhooks: Connects event data to external destinations.
Quick Docker deployment: Ships as a single production-ready Docker image requiring only Docker and Docker Compose.
Self-hosted and cloud versions: Offers both an open-source self-hosted option and a fully-managed cloud service (Trench Cloud).
Use Cases:
Developers deploying a real-time event tracking pipeline on their own infrastructure with Apache Kafka and ClickHouse.
Teams needing compliant event tracking that supports data access, rectification, and deletion requests.
Organizations looking to replicate Segment-compatible event ingestion without relying on the Segment SaaS platform.
System administrators configuring Kafka clusters with SASL/SSL authentication for event streaming.
Why It Matters:
Trench provides an open-source, MIT-licensed alternative for real-time event tracking with Segment API compatibility. It focuses on deployment simplicity via a Docker image and handles high event volumes on a single node. The project explicitly supports data compliance and user control over personal data, which is relevant for teams building privacy-aware analytics infrastructure. However, it does not include visual dashboards, user interfaces, or built-in analytics tools beyond raw SQL and API queries.
