head to head · open source
Grafana Loki vs logtape
Grafana Loki has 29,120 GitHub stars, 4,173 forks, 1,620 open issues and last shipped yesterday. logtape has 2,026 stars, 55 forks, 12 open issues and last shipped 17 days ago. Grafana Loki leads on adoption by 1,337% (29,120 vs 2,026 stars). Grafana Loki is written in Go under AGPL-3.0; logtape is written in TypeScript under MIT. Grafana Loki has attracted 14% as many forks as stars, logtape 3%. 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 | logtape | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 29K | ★ 2.0K |
| License | AGPL-3.0 | MIT |
| Written in | Go | TypeScript |
| Last push | 2026-11-04 | 2026-10-19 |
| Forks | ⑂ 4.2K | ⑂ 55 |
| 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 logtape if
- You want the logtape feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the MIT license terms
- Your stack matches TypeScript
- You evaluated both and logtape 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 logtape
LogTape ======= [![JSR][JSR badge]][JSR] [![npm][npm badge]][npm] [![Bundlephobia][Bundlephobia badge]][Bundlephobia] [![GitHub Actions][GitHub Actions badge]][GitHub Actions] [![Codecov][Codecov badge]][Codecov] LogTape is a logging library for JavaScript and TypeScript designed with a library first philosophy. Unlike traditional loggers, LogTape is unobtrusive—libraries can safely log without any configuration, while applications retain full control. With zero dependencies and universal runtime support, it works seamlessly across Deno, Node.js, Bun, browsers, and edge functions. The highlights of LogTape are…
read the full logtape overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is Grafana Loki or logtape more popular?
Grafana Loki has 29,120 GitHub stars and logtape has 2,026. Grafana Loki has the larger community by that measure.
Are Grafana Loki and logtape free?
Both are open source. Grafana Loki is licensed under AGPL-3.0 and logtape under MIT. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between Grafana Loki and logtape?
Grafana Loki is written in Go and logtape in TypeScript. 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 logtape?
Choose Grafana Loki if you want the larger community (29,120 stars) or its AGPL-3.0 licence terms. Choose logtape if its feature set, stack or MIT licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.