head to head · open source
Grafana vs defmt
Grafana has 77,638 GitHub stars, 14,905 forks, 3,326 open issues and last shipped yesterday. defmt has 1,241 stars, 135 forks, 117 open issues and last shipped yesterday. Grafana leads on adoption by 6,156% (77,638 vs 1,241 stars). Grafana is written in TypeScript under AGPL-3.0; defmt is written in Rust under Apache-2.0. Grafana has attracted 19% as many forks as stars, defmt 11%. 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 | defmt | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 78K | ★ 1.2K |
| License | AGPL-3.0 | Apache-2.0 |
| Written in | TypeScript | Rust |
| Last push | 2026-11-02 | 2026-11-02 |
| Forks | ⑂ 15K | ⑂ 135 |
| 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 defmt if
- You want the defmt 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 defmt 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 defmt
defmt defmt ("de format", short for "deferred formatting") is a highly efficient logging framework that targets resource constrained devices, like microcontrollers. For more details about the framework check the book at . Components This repository contains the following packages: MSRV The minimum supported Rust version is 1.76 (or Ferrocene 24.05) for the crates that cross compile to your microcontroller. The minimum supported Rust version is 1.83 for all host side crates. The defmt crates are tested against the latest stable Rust version and the MSRV. Developer Information Running Tests Tests are run using…
read the full defmt overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is Grafana or defmt more popular?
Grafana has 77,638 GitHub stars and defmt has 1,241. Grafana has the larger community by that measure.
Are Grafana and defmt free?
Both are open source. Grafana is licensed under AGPL-3.0 and defmt under Apache-2.0. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between Grafana and defmt?
Grafana is written in TypeScript and defmt 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 defmt?
Choose Grafana if you want the larger community (77,638 stars) or its AGPL-3.0 licence terms. Choose defmt if its feature set, stack or Apache-2.0 licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.