head to head · open source
Grafana vs aya
Grafana has 76,792 GitHub stars, 14,752 forks, 3,326 open issues and last shipped today. aya has 4,811 stars, 477 forks, 201 open issues and last shipped today. Grafana leads on adoption by 1,496% (76,792 vs 4,811 stars). Grafana is written in TypeScript under AGPL-3.0; aya is written in Rust under Apache-2.0. Grafana has attracted 19% as many forks as stars, aya 10%. 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 | aya | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 77K | ★ 4.8K |
| License | AGPL-3.0 | Apache-2.0 |
| Written in | TypeScript | Rust |
| Last push | 2026-09-18 | 2026-09-18 |
| Forks | ⑂ 15K | ⑂ 477 |
| 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 aya if
- You want the aya feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the Apache-2.0 license terms
- Your stack matches Rust
- You evaluated both and aya 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 aya
Aya is an eBPF library for the Rust programming language, built with a focus on developer experience and operability, and it exists so that Rust developers can load, attach, and drive eBPF programs running inside the Linux kernel without depending on C toolchains or C eBPF frameworks.
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Frequently asked questions
Is Grafana or aya more popular?
Grafana has 76,792 GitHub stars and aya has 4,811. Grafana has the larger community by that measure.
Are Grafana and aya free?
Both are open source. Grafana is licensed under AGPL-3.0 and aya under Apache-2.0. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between Grafana and aya?
Grafana is written in TypeScript and aya in Rust. 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 aya?
Choose Grafana if you want the larger community (76,792 stars) or its AGPL-3.0 licence terms. Choose aya if its feature set, stack or Apache-2.0 licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.