head to head · open source
Grafana Loki vs Logfire
Grafana Loki has 28,917 GitHub stars, 4,115 forks, 1,620 open issues and last shipped yesterday. Logfire has 4,480 stars, 289 forks, 191 open issues and last shipped today. Grafana Loki leads on adoption by 545% (28,917 vs 4,480 stars). Grafana Loki is written in Go under AGPL-3.0; Logfire is written in Python under MIT. Grafana Loki has attracted 14% as many forks as stars, Logfire 6%. Logfire 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.
← all 20902 open source comparisons
Side by side
| Grafana Loki | Logfire | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 29K | ★ 4.5K |
| License | AGPL-3.0 | MIT |
| Written in | Go | Python |
| Last push | 2026-09-19 | 2026-09-20 |
| Forks | ⑂ 4.1K | ⑂ 289 |
| 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 Logfire if
- You want the Logfire feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the MIT license terms
- Your stack matches Python
- You evaluated both and Logfire fits your workflow better
About Grafana Loki
Grafana Loki is a log aggregation system designed as the log oriented counterpart to Prometheus. It operates within the cloud native observability ecosystem, specifically targeting Kubernetes and containerized environments. Loki avoids expensive full text indexing by indexing only metadata labels attached to log streams, storing the raw log content in compressed form. This design choice makes Loki significantly simpler to operate and more cost effective than traditional log systems that index every word.
read the full Grafana Loki overview →
About Logfire
Pydantic Logfire is an observability platform for Python applications, with a focus on AI systems, LLM apps, and agents. The project lives in the Python and OpenTelemetry ecosystem. The repository contains the MIT licensed Python SDK and documentation, while the server application for recording and displaying data is closed source.
read the full Logfire overview →
More in Infrastructure & Operations
Related comparisons
More Monitoring & Observability projects
Compare either of these against the rest of the Monitoring & Observability field.
Frequently asked questions
Is Grafana Loki or Logfire more popular?
Grafana Loki has 28,917 GitHub stars and Logfire has 4,480. Grafana Loki has the larger community by that measure.
Are Grafana Loki and Logfire free?
Both are open source. Grafana Loki is licensed under AGPL-3.0 and Logfire under MIT. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between Grafana Loki and Logfire?
Grafana Loki is written in Go and Logfire in Python. 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 Logfire?
Choose Grafana Loki if you want the larger community (28,917 stars) or its AGPL-3.0 licence terms. Choose Logfire if its feature set, stack or MIT licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.