head to head · open source
Grafana Loki vs g3log
Grafana Loki has 29,124 GitHub stars, 4,174 forks, 1,620 open issues and last shipped yesterday. g3log has 966 stars, 280 forks, 0 open issues and last shipped 4 days ago. Grafana Loki leads on adoption by 2,915% (29,124 vs 966 stars). Grafana Loki is written in Go under AGPL-3.0; g3log is written in C++ under Unlicense. Grafana Loki has attracted 14% as many forks as stars, g3log 29%. Grafana Loki was the more recently maintained of the two, and both are self-hostable with no licence fee. The two share 1 topic tag (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
| Grafana Loki | g3log | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 29K | ★ 966 |
| License | AGPL-3.0 | Unlicense |
| Written in | Go | C++ |
| Last push | 2026-11-04 | 2026-11-01 |
| Forks | ⑂ 4.2K | ⑂ 280 |
| Self-hosting | Yes | Yes |
| Data ownership | Your server | Your server |
pick Grafana Loki if
- You weight community size — 29K stars and counting
- You want the AGPL-3.0 license terms
- Your stack matches Go
- You value the larger contributor base for long-term maintenance
pick g3log if
- You want the g3log feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the Unlicense license terms
- Your stack matches C++
- You evaluated both and g3log fits your workflow better
About Grafana Loki
Loki: like Prometheus, but for logs. Loki is a horizontally scalable, highly available, multi tenant log aggregation system inspired by Prometheus. It is designed to be very cost effective and easy to operate. It does not index the contents of the logs, but rather a set of labels for each log stream. Compared to other log aggregation systems, Loki: does not do full text indexing on logs. By storing compressed, unstructured logs and only indexing metadata, Loki is simpler to operate and cheaper to run. indexes and groups log streams using the same labels you’re already using with Prometheus, enabling you to…
read the full Grafana Loki overview →
About g3log
Scanning Update : Contents introduction detailed information Configure & Build API description Custom log formatting Welcome to g3log Use kjellkod.github.io/g3log/ for best reading / searching / navigating of g3log's documentation G3log is an asynchronous logger with three main features: 1. Intuitive LOG(...) API 2. Design by contract CHECK(...) functionality 3. Fatal crash handling for graceful shutdown of the logged process without loosing any log details up to the point of the crash. The super quick introduction to g3log can be seen in the steps 1 9 below. For more in depth information please see the full…
read the full g3log overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is Grafana Loki or g3log more popular?
Grafana Loki has 29,124 GitHub stars and g3log has 966. Grafana Loki has the larger community by that measure.
Are Grafana Loki and g3log free?
Both are open source. Grafana Loki is licensed under AGPL-3.0 and g3log under Unlicense. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between Grafana Loki and g3log?
Grafana Loki is written in Go and g3log in C++. The practical differences are community size, licence terms, language stack and release cadence — all compared in the table above.
Which should I choose, Grafana Loki or g3log?
Choose Grafana Loki if you want the larger community (29,124 stars) or its AGPL-3.0 licence terms. Choose g3log if its feature set, stack or Unlicense licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.