head to head · open source
Grafana vs CocoaLumberjack
Grafana has 76,791 GitHub stars, 14,749 forks, 3,326 open issues and last shipped yesterday. CocoaLumberjack has 13,319 stars, 2,274 forks, 7 open issues and last shipped 2 days ago. Grafana leads on adoption by 477% (76,791 vs 13,319 stars). Grafana is written in TypeScript under AGPL-3.0; CocoaLumberjack is written in Objective-C under BSD-3-Clause. Grafana has attracted 19% as many forks as stars, CocoaLumberjack 17%. 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 | CocoaLumberjack | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 77K | ★ 13K |
| License | AGPL-3.0 | BSD-3-Clause |
| Written in | TypeScript | Objective-C |
| Last push | 2026-09-17 | 2026-09-16 |
| Forks | ⑂ 15K | ⑂ 2.3K |
| 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 CocoaLumberjack if
- You want the CocoaLumberjack feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the BSD-3-Clause license terms
- Your stack matches Objective-C
- You evaluated both and CocoaLumberjack 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 CocoaLumberjack
CocoaLumberjack is a fast and flexible logging framework, written primarily in Objective C with first class Swift support, for applications targeting macOS, iOS, tvOS, watchOS and visionOS.
read the full CocoaLumberjack overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is Grafana or CocoaLumberjack more popular?
Grafana has 76,791 GitHub stars and CocoaLumberjack has 13,319. Grafana has the larger community by that measure.
Are Grafana and CocoaLumberjack free?
Both are open source. Grafana is licensed under AGPL-3.0 and CocoaLumberjack under BSD-3-Clause. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between Grafana and CocoaLumberjack?
Grafana is written in TypeScript and CocoaLumberjack in Objective-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 CocoaLumberjack?
Choose Grafana if you want the larger community (76,791 stars) or its AGPL-3.0 licence terms. Choose CocoaLumberjack if its feature set, stack or BSD-3-Clause licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.