head to head · open source
Grafana Loki vs logging-log4net
Grafana Loki has 29,120 GitHub stars, 4,173 forks, 1,620 open issues and last shipped yesterday. logging-log4net has 936 stars, 335 forks, 6 open issues and last shipped 2 days ago. Grafana Loki leads on adoption by 3,011% (29,120 vs 936 stars). Grafana Loki is written in Go under AGPL-3.0; logging-log4net is written in C# under Apache-2.0. Grafana Loki has attracted 14% as many forks as stars, logging-log4net 36%. 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.
← all 20902 open source comparisons
Side by side
| Grafana Loki | logging-log4net | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 29K | ★ 936 |
| License | AGPL-3.0 | Apache-2.0 |
| Written in | Go | C# |
| Last push | 2026-11-04 | 2026-11-03 |
| Forks | ⑂ 4.2K | ⑂ 335 |
| 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 logging-log4net if
- You want the logging-log4net feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the Apache-2.0 license terms
- Your stack matches C#
- You evaluated both and logging-log4net 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 logging-log4net
log4net Introduction Apache log4net is a sub project of the Apache Logging Services project. Apache log4net graduated from the Apache Incubator in February 2007. Web site: Documentation For the latest documentation see the log4net web site at: Extensions log4net.Ext.Mail MailKit based SMTP appender for sending log events via email (recommended replacement for the deprecated SmtpAppender) Contributing log4net development happens on Github and on our mailing list. Please join the mailing list and discuss bigger changes before working on them. For bigger changes we must ask you to sign a Contributor License…
read the full logging-log4net 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 logging-log4net more popular?
Grafana Loki has 29,120 GitHub stars and logging-log4net has 936. Grafana Loki has the larger community by that measure.
Are Grafana Loki and logging-log4net free?
Both are open source. Grafana Loki is licensed under AGPL-3.0 and logging-log4net under Apache-2.0. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between Grafana Loki and logging-log4net?
Grafana Loki is written in Go and logging-log4net 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 logging-log4net?
Choose Grafana Loki if you want the larger community (29,120 stars) or its AGPL-3.0 licence terms. Choose logging-log4net if its feature set, stack or Apache-2.0 licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.