head to head · open source
Grafana Loki vs logging-operator
Grafana Loki has 28,917 GitHub stars, 4,115 forks, 1,620 open issues and last shipped yesterday. logging-operator has 1,715 stars, 369 forks, 42 open issues and last shipped 2 days ago. Grafana Loki leads on adoption by 1,586% (28,917 vs 1,715 stars). Grafana Loki is written in Go under AGPL-3.0; logging-operator is written in Go under Apache-2.0. Grafana Loki has attracted 14% as many forks as stars, logging-operator 22%. 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 | logging-operator | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 29K | ★ 1.7K |
| License | AGPL-3.0 | Apache-2.0 |
| Written in | Go | Go |
| Last push | 2026-09-19 | 2026-09-18 |
| Forks | ⑂ 4.1K | ⑂ 369 |
| 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-operator if
- You want the logging-operator feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the Apache-2.0 license terms
- Your stack matches Go
- You evaluated both and logging-operator 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 logging-operator
The Logging operator is a CNCF Sandbox Kubernetes operator that automates the deployment and configuration of a cluster logging pipeline, and it is for platform, infrastructure, and operations teams running Kubernetes who need container and application logs collected, enriched, filtered, and delivered to one or more destinations.
read the full logging-operator overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is Grafana Loki or logging-operator more popular?
Grafana Loki has 28,917 GitHub stars and logging-operator has 1,715. Grafana Loki has the larger community by that measure.
Are Grafana Loki and logging-operator free?
Both are open source. Grafana Loki is licensed under AGPL-3.0 and logging-operator under Apache-2.0. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between Grafana Loki and logging-operator?
Grafana Loki is written in Go and logging-operator 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, Grafana Loki or logging-operator?
Choose Grafana Loki if you want the larger community (28,917 stars) or its AGPL-3.0 licence terms. Choose logging-operator if its feature set, stack or Apache-2.0 licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.