head to head · open source
Grafana Loki vs Pulse
Grafana Loki has 29,120 GitHub stars, 4,173 forks, 1,620 open issues and last shipped yesterday. Pulse has 7,253 stars, 380 forks, 46 open issues and last shipped 25 days ago. Grafana Loki leads on adoption by 301% (29,120 vs 7,253 stars). Grafana Loki is written in Go under AGPL-3.0; Pulse is written in Swift under MIT. Grafana Loki has attracted 14% as many forks as stars, Pulse 5%. 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 | Pulse | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 29K | ★ 7.3K |
| License | AGPL-3.0 | MIT |
| Written in | Go | Swift |
| Last push | 2026-11-04 | 2026-10-11 |
| Forks | ⑂ 4.2K | ⑂ 380 |
| 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 Pulse if
- You want the Pulse feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the MIT license terms
- Your stack matches Swift
- You evaluated both and Pulse 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 Pulse
Pulse is a powerful logging system for Apple Platforms. Native. Built with SwiftUI. Record and inspect logs and URLSession network requests right from your iOS app. Share logs and view them in Pulse Pro or use remote logging to see them in real time. Logs are stored locally and never leave your devices. About Pulse is not just a tool, it's a framework. It records events from URLSession or from frameworks that use it, such as Alamofire or Get, and displays them using PulseUI views that you integrate directly into your app. This way Pulse console is available for everyone who has your test builds. You or your QA…
read the full Pulse overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is Grafana Loki or Pulse more popular?
Grafana Loki has 29,120 GitHub stars and Pulse has 7,253. Grafana Loki has the larger community by that measure.
Are Grafana Loki and Pulse free?
Both are open source. Grafana Loki is licensed under AGPL-3.0 and Pulse under MIT. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between Grafana Loki and Pulse?
Grafana Loki is written in Go and Pulse in Swift. 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 Pulse?
Choose Grafana Loki if you want the larger community (29,120 stars) or its AGPL-3.0 licence terms. Choose Pulse if its feature set, stack or MIT licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.