head to head · open source
Grafana vs effect
Grafana has 76,791 GitHub stars, 14,749 forks, 3,326 open issues and last shipped yesterday. effect has 16,097 stars, 747 forks, 253 open issues and last shipped yesterday. Grafana leads on adoption by 377% (76,791 vs 16,097 stars). Grafana is written in TypeScript under AGPL-3.0; effect is written in TypeScript under MIT. Grafana has attracted 19% as many forks as stars, effect 5%. Grafana was the more recently maintained of the two, and both are self-hostable with no licence fee.
Two open source projects, one decision. Both are free and self-hostable — the differences are community size, license terms, language stack and release pace.
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Side by side
| Grafana | effect | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 77K | ★ 16K |
| License | AGPL-3.0 | MIT |
| Written in | TypeScript | TypeScript |
| Last push | 2026-09-17 | 2026-09-17 |
| Forks | ⑂ 15K | ⑂ 747 |
| Self-hosting | Yes | Yes |
| Data ownership | Your server | Your server |
pick Grafana if
- You weight community size — 77K stars and counting
- You want the AGPL-3.0 license terms
- Your stack matches TypeScript
- You value the larger contributor base for long-term maintenance
pick effect if
- You want the effect feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the MIT license terms
- Your stack matches TypeScript
- You evaluated both and effect fits your workflow better
About Grafana
Grafana is an open source observability platform for visualizing metrics, logs, and traces across diverse data sources. It runs in the infrastructure and operations ecosystem, designed for teams needing unified visibility into system behavior without vendor lock in. Built with TypeScript and Go, it provides a composable architecture that integrates with existing toolchains.
read the full Grafana overview →
About effect
Effect is a TypeScript library for building robust, maintainable, type safe, and production grade applications. It lives in the TypeScript and JavaScript ecosystem, distributed as the core effect package alongside a monorepo of integration packages that extend it. The project is MIT licensed, has been developed for roughly seven years, and currently ships Effect V4 as a release candidate, with the main branch holding v4 development and the v3 branch retaining the previous line.
read the full effect overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is Grafana or effect more popular?
Grafana has 76,791 GitHub stars and effect has 16,097. Grafana has the larger community by that measure.
Are Grafana and effect free?
Both are open source. Grafana is licensed under AGPL-3.0 and effect under MIT. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between Grafana and effect?
Grafana is written in TypeScript and effect in TypeScript. The practical differences are community size, licence terms, language stack and release cadence — all compared in the table above.
Which should I choose, Grafana or effect?
Choose Grafana if you want the larger community (76,791 stars) or its AGPL-3.0 licence terms. Choose effect if its feature set, stack or MIT licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.