head to head · open source
Grafana vs client_java
Grafana has 77,638 GitHub stars, 14,905 forks, 3,326 open issues and last shipped yesterday. client_java has 2,291 stars, 837 forks, 23 open issues and last shipped yesterday. Grafana leads on adoption by 3,289% (77,638 vs 2,291 stars). Grafana is written in TypeScript under AGPL-3.0; client_java is written in Java under Apache-2.0. Grafana has attracted 19% as many forks as stars, client_java 37%. Grafana was the more recently maintained of the two, and both are self-hostable with no licence fee. The two share 1 topic tag (metrics), 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.
← all 20902 open source comparisons
Side by side
| Grafana | client_java | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 78K | ★ 2.3K |
| License | AGPL-3.0 | Apache-2.0 |
| Written in | TypeScript | Java |
| Last push | 2026-11-02 | 2026-11-02 |
| Forks | ⑂ 15K | ⑂ 837 |
| Self-hosting | Yes | Yes |
| Data ownership | Your server | Your server |
pick Grafana if
- You weight community size — 78K 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 client_java if
- You want the client_java feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the Apache-2.0 license terms
- Your stack matches Java
- You evaluated both and client_java fits your workflow better
About Grafana
The open source platform for monitoring and observability Grafana allows you to query, visualize, alert on and understand your metrics no matter where they are stored. Create, explore, and share dashboards with your team and foster a data driven culture: Visualizations: Fast and flexible client side graphs with a multitude of options. Panel plugins offer many different ways to visualize metrics and logs. Dynamic Dashboards: Create dynamic & reusable dashboards with template variables that appear as dropdowns at the top of the dashboard. Explore Metrics: Explore your data through ad hoc queries and dynamic…
read the full Grafana overview →
About client_java
Prometheus Java Metrics Library [![Build][build badge]][build workflow] [build badge]: [build workflow]: Documentation Contributing and community See CONTRIBUTING.md and the community section of the Prometheus homepage. The Prometheus Java community is present on the CNCF Slack on prometheus java , and we have a fortnightly community call in the Prometheus public calendar. Previous Releases The source code for 0.16.0 and older is on the simpleclient branch. License Apache License 2.0, see LICENSE.
read the full client_java 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 client_java more popular?
Grafana has 77,638 GitHub stars and client_java has 2,291. Grafana has the larger community by that measure.
Are Grafana and client_java free?
Both are open source. Grafana is licensed under AGPL-3.0 and client_java under Apache-2.0. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between Grafana and client_java?
Grafana is written in TypeScript and client_java in Java. 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 client_java?
Choose Grafana if you want the larger community (77,638 stars) or its AGPL-3.0 licence terms. Choose client_java if its feature set, stack or Apache-2.0 licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.