head to head · open source
Grafana Loki vs OpenSearch
Grafana Loki has 29,111 GitHub stars, 4,169 forks, 1,620 open issues and last shipped yesterday. OpenSearch has 13,951 stars, 3,117 forks, 3,167 open issues and last shipped yesterday. Grafana Loki leads on adoption by 109% (29,111 vs 13,951 stars). Grafana Loki is written in Go under AGPL-3.0; OpenSearch is written in Java under Apache-2.0. Grafana Loki has attracted 14% as many forks as stars, OpenSearch 22%. Grafana Loki was the more recently maintained of the two, and both are self-hostable with no licence fee.
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 | OpenSearch | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 29K | ★ 14K |
| License | AGPL-3.0 | Apache-2.0 |
| Written in | Go | Java |
| Last push | 2026-11-02 | 2026-11-02 |
| Forks | ⑂ 4.2K | ⑂ 3.1K |
| 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 OpenSearch if
- You want the OpenSearch feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the Apache-2.0 license terms
- Your stack matches Java
- You evaluated both and OpenSearch 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 OpenSearch
Welcome! Project Resources Code of Conduct Security License Copyright Trademark Welcome! OpenSearch is an open source, enterprise grade search and observability suite that brings order to unstructured data at scale. Project Resources Project Website Downloads Documentation Need help? Try Forums or Slack Contributing to OpenSearch Maintainer Responsibilities Release Management Admin Responsibilities Testing Security Code of Conduct The project's Code of Conduct outlines our expectations for all participants in our community, based on the OpenSearch Code of Conduct. Please contact conduct@opensearch.foundation…
read the full OpenSearch overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is Grafana Loki or OpenSearch more popular?
Grafana Loki has 29,111 GitHub stars and OpenSearch has 13,951. Grafana Loki has the larger community by that measure.
Are Grafana Loki and OpenSearch free?
Both are open source. Grafana Loki is licensed under AGPL-3.0 and OpenSearch under Apache-2.0. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between Grafana Loki and OpenSearch?
Grafana Loki is written in Go and OpenSearch in Java. 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 OpenSearch?
Choose Grafana Loki if you want the larger community (29,111 stars) or its AGPL-3.0 licence terms. Choose OpenSearch if its feature set, stack or Apache-2.0 licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.