head to head · open source
gofr vs nerdlog
gofr has 20,909 GitHub stars, 1,760 forks, 132 open issues and last shipped 2 days ago. nerdlog has 1,563 stars, 40 forks, 14 open issues and last shipped yesterday. gofr leads on adoption by 1,238% (20,909 vs 1,563 stars). gofr is written in Go under Apache-2.0; nerdlog is written in Go under BSD-2-Clause. gofr has attracted 8% as many forks as stars, nerdlog 3%. nerdlog was the more recently maintained of the two, and both are self-hostable with no licence fee. The two share 2 topic tags (go, logging), so they are genuine substitutes rather than adjacent tools.
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
| gofr | nerdlog | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 21K | ★ 1.6K |
| License | Apache-2.0 | BSD-2-Clause |
| Written in | Go | Go |
| Last push | 2026-09-18 | 2026-09-19 |
| Forks | ⑂ 1.8K | ⑂ 40 |
| Self-hosting | Yes | Yes |
| Data ownership | Your server | Your server |
pick gofr if
- You weight community size — 21K stars and counting
- You want the Apache-2.0 license terms
- Your stack matches Go
- You value the larger contributor base for long-term maintenance
pick nerdlog if
- You want the nerdlog feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the BSD-2-Clause license terms
- Your stack matches Go
- You evaluated both and nerdlog fits your workflow better
About gofr
GoFr is an opinionated Go framework for building microservices, aimed at Go developers and platform teams who want HTTP, gRPC, data access and observability built in rather than assembled from separate libraries.
About nerdlog
Nerdlog is a fast, remote first, multi host terminal user interface log viewer with a timeline histogram that needs no central server, built in Go for engineers who read system logs from several remote hosts at once.
read the full nerdlog overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is gofr or nerdlog more popular?
gofr has 20,909 GitHub stars and nerdlog has 1,563. gofr has the larger community by that measure.
Are gofr and nerdlog free?
Both are open source. gofr is licensed under Apache-2.0 and nerdlog under BSD-2-Clause. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between gofr and nerdlog?
gofr is written in Go and nerdlog in Go. The practical differences are community size, licence terms, language stack and release cadence — all compared in the table above.
Which should I choose, gofr or nerdlog?
Choose gofr if you want the larger community (20,909 stars) or its Apache-2.0 licence terms. Choose nerdlog if its feature set, stack or BSD-2-Clause licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.