head to head · open source
Grafana vs aspire-samples
Grafana has 76,792 GitHub stars, 14,752 forks, 3,326 open issues and last shipped yesterday. aspire-samples has 1,191 stars, 345 forks, 112 open issues and last shipped yesterday. Grafana leads on adoption by 6,348% (76,792 vs 1,191 stars). Grafana is written in TypeScript under AGPL-3.0; aspire-samples is written in C# under MIT. Grafana has attracted 19% as many forks as stars, aspire-samples 29%. aspire-samples was the more recently maintained of the two, and both are self-hostable with no licence fee. The two share 2 topic tags (go, hacktoberfest), 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 | aspire-samples | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 77K | ★ 1.2K |
| License | AGPL-3.0 | MIT |
| Written in | TypeScript | C# |
| Last push | 2026-09-18 | 2026-09-18 |
| Forks | ⑂ 15K | ⑂ 345 |
| 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 aspire-samples if
- You want the aspire-samples feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the MIT license terms
- Your stack matches C#
- You evaluated both and aspire-samples 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 aspire-samples
Aspire Samples is a browsable catalogue of runnable reference applications that demonstrate how to wire front ends, APIs, containers, and databases together with Aspire, written for developers building distributed and polyglot applications who learn best from working code.
read the full aspire-samples overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is Grafana or aspire-samples more popular?
Grafana has 76,792 GitHub stars and aspire-samples has 1,191. Grafana has the larger community by that measure.
Are Grafana and aspire-samples free?
Both are open source. Grafana is licensed under AGPL-3.0 and aspire-samples under MIT. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between Grafana and aspire-samples?
Grafana is written in TypeScript and aspire-samples 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 aspire-samples?
Choose Grafana if you want the larger community (76,792 stars) or its AGPL-3.0 licence terms. Choose aspire-samples if its feature set, stack or MIT licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.