head to head · open source
Grafana Loki vs VictoriaLogs
Grafana Loki has 28,908 GitHub stars, 4,112 forks, 1,620 open issues and last shipped today. VictoriaLogs has 2,291 stars, 193 forks, 314 open issues and last shipped today. Grafana Loki leads on adoption by 1,162% (28,908 vs 2,291 stars). Grafana Loki is written in Go under AGPL-3.0; VictoriaLogs is written in Go under Apache-2.0. Grafana Loki has attracted 14% as many forks as stars, VictoriaLogs 8%. Grafana Loki was the more recently maintained of the two, and both are self-hostable with no licence fee. The two share 3 topic tags (grafana, logging, loki), 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 | VictoriaLogs | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 29K | ★ 2.3K |
| License | AGPL-3.0 | Apache-2.0 |
| Written in | Go | Go |
| Last push | 2026-09-18 | 2026-09-18 |
| Forks | ⑂ 4.1K | ⑂ 193 |
| 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 VictoriaLogs if
- You want the VictoriaLogs 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 VictoriaLogs 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 VictoriaLogs
VictoriaLogs is an Apache 2.0, Go based log database from VictoriaMetrics that stores logs without a fixed schema and is built to handle terabytes of log data per day, aimed at teams that run their own logging infrastructure.
read the full VictoriaLogs overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is Grafana Loki or VictoriaLogs more popular?
Grafana Loki has 28,908 GitHub stars and VictoriaLogs has 2,291. Grafana Loki has the larger community by that measure.
Are Grafana Loki and VictoriaLogs free?
Both are open source. Grafana Loki is licensed under AGPL-3.0 and VictoriaLogs under Apache-2.0. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between Grafana Loki and VictoriaLogs?
Grafana Loki is written in Go and VictoriaLogs 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 VictoriaLogs?
Choose Grafana Loki if you want the larger community (28,908 stars) or its AGPL-3.0 licence terms. Choose VictoriaLogs if its feature set, stack or Apache-2.0 licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.