head to head · open source
Grafana vs apm-agent-nodejs
Grafana has 76,792 GitHub stars, 14,752 forks, 3,326 open issues and last shipped today. apm-agent-nodejs has 594 stars, 244 forks, 361 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-nodejs is written in JavaScript under BSD-2-Clause. Grafana has attracted 19% as many forks as stars, apm-agent-nodejs 41%. 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.
← all 8884 open source comparisons
Side by side
| Grafana | apm-agent-nodejs | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 77K | ★ 594 |
| License | AGPL-3.0 | BSD-2-Clause |
| Written in | TypeScript | JavaScript |
| Last push | 2026-09-18 | 2026-09-17 |
| Forks | ⑂ 15K | ⑂ 244 |
| 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-nodejs if
- You want the apm-agent-nodejs feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the BSD-2-Clause license terms
- Your stack matches JavaScript
- You evaluated both and apm-agent-nodejs 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-nodejs
Elastic APM Node.js Agent This is the official Node.js application performance monitoring (APM) agent for the Elastic Observability solution. It is a Node.js package that runs with your Node.js application to automatically capture errors, tracing data, and performance metrics. APM data is sent to your Elastic Observability deployment hosted in Elastic's cloud or in your own on premises deployment where you can monitor your application, create alerts, and quick identify root causes of service issues. If you have any feedback or questions, please post them on the Discuss forum. Installation Getting started First, y…
read the full apm-agent-nodejs overview →
More in Infrastructure & Operations
Related comparisons
More Monitoring & Observability projects
Compare either of these against the rest of the Monitoring & Observability field.
Frequently asked questions
Is Grafana or apm-agent-nodejs more popular?
Grafana has 76,792 GitHub stars and apm-agent-nodejs has 594. Grafana has the larger community by that measure.
Are Grafana and apm-agent-nodejs free?
Both are open source. Grafana is licensed under AGPL-3.0 and apm-agent-nodejs under BSD-2-Clause. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between Grafana and apm-agent-nodejs?
Grafana is written in TypeScript and apm-agent-nodejs in JavaScript. 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-nodejs?
Choose Grafana if you want the larger community (76,792 stars) or its AGPL-3.0 licence terms. Choose apm-agent-nodejs if its feature set, stack or BSD-2-Clause licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.