head to head · open source
Grafana vs apm-agent-dotnet
Grafana has 76,792 GitHub stars, 14,752 forks, 3,326 open issues and last shipped today. apm-agent-dotnet has 594 stars, 218 forks, 0 open issues and last shipped yesterday. Grafana leads on adoption by 12,828% (76,792 vs 594 stars). Grafana is written in TypeScript under AGPL-3.0; apm-agent-dotnet is written in C# under Apache-2.0. Grafana has attracted 19% as many forks as stars, apm-agent-dotnet 37%. Grafana 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 | apm-agent-dotnet | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 77K | ★ 594 |
| License | AGPL-3.0 | Apache-2.0 |
| Written in | TypeScript | C# |
| Last push | 2026-09-18 | 2026-09-17 |
| Forks | ⑂ 15K | ⑂ 218 |
| Self-hosting | Yes | Yes |
| Data ownership | Your server | Your server |
pick Grafana if
- You weight community size — 77K stars and counting
- You want the AGPL-3.0 license terms
- Your stack matches TypeScript
- You value the larger contributor base for long-term maintenance
pick apm-agent-dotnet if
- You want the apm-agent-dotnet feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the Apache-2.0 license terms
- Your stack matches C#
- You evaluated both and apm-agent-dotnet fits your workflow better
About Grafana
Grafana is an open source observability platform for visualizing metrics, logs, and traces across diverse data sources. It runs in the infrastructure and operations ecosystem, designed for teams needing unified visibility into system behavior without vendor lock in. Built with TypeScript and Go, it provides a composable architecture that integrates with existing toolchains.
read the full Grafana overview →
About apm-agent-dotnet
apm agent dotnet Please fill out this survey to help us prioritize framework support: Installation Official NuGet packages can be referenced from NuGet.org. Documentation Docs are located here. That page is generated from the content of the docs folder. Getting Help If you have any feedback feel free to open an issue. For any other assistance, please open or add to a topic on the APM discuss forum. If you need help or hit an issue, please start by opening a topic on our discuss forums. Please note that we reserve GitHub tickets for confirmed bugs and enhancement requests. Contributing See the contributing documen…
read the full apm-agent-dotnet overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is Grafana or apm-agent-dotnet more popular?
Grafana has 76,792 GitHub stars and apm-agent-dotnet has 594. Grafana has the larger community by that measure.
Are Grafana and apm-agent-dotnet free?
Both are open source. Grafana is licensed under AGPL-3.0 and apm-agent-dotnet under Apache-2.0. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between Grafana and apm-agent-dotnet?
Grafana is written in TypeScript and apm-agent-dotnet in C#. The practical differences are community size, licence terms, language stack and release cadence — all compared in the table above.
Which should I choose, Grafana or apm-agent-dotnet?
Choose Grafana if you want the larger community (76,792 stars) or its AGPL-3.0 licence terms. Choose apm-agent-dotnet if its feature set, stack or Apache-2.0 licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.