head to head · open source
Grafana vs express-status-monitor
Grafana has 76,792 GitHub stars, 14,752 forks, 3,326 open issues and last shipped today. express-status-monitor has 3,615 stars, 264 forks, 68 open issues and last shipped 7 months ago. Grafana leads on adoption by 2,024% (76,792 vs 3,615 stars). Grafana is written in TypeScript under AGPL-3.0; express-status-monitor is written in JavaScript under MIT. Grafana has attracted 19% as many forks as stars, express-status-monitor 7%. Grafana was the more recently maintained of the two, and both are self-hostable with no licence fee. The two share 1 topic tag (monitoring), 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 | express-status-monitor | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 77K | ★ 3.6K |
| License | AGPL-3.0 | MIT |
| Written in | TypeScript | JavaScript |
| Last push | 2026-09-18 | 2026-02-16 |
| Forks | ⑂ 15K | ⑂ 264 |
| 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 express-status-monitor if
- You want the express-status-monitor feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the MIT license terms
- Your stack matches JavaScript
- You evaluated both and express-status-monitor 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 express-status-monitor
express status monitor Simple, self hosted module based on Socket.io and Chart.js to report realtime server metrics for Express based node servers. Demo Demo available here Support for other Node.js frameworks koa monitor for Koa hapijs status monitor for hapi.js Installation & setup 1. Run npm install express status monitor save 2. Before any other middleware or router add following line: app.use(require('express status monitor')()); 3. Run server and go to /status Note: This plugin works on Node versions 4.x Run examples 1. Go to cd examples/ 2. Run npm i 3. Run server npm start 4. Go to Options Monitor can be …
read the full express-status-monitor overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is Grafana or express-status-monitor more popular?
Grafana has 76,792 GitHub stars and express-status-monitor has 3,615. Grafana has the larger community by that measure.
Are Grafana and express-status-monitor free?
Both are open source. Grafana is licensed under AGPL-3.0 and express-status-monitor under MIT. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between Grafana and express-status-monitor?
Grafana is written in TypeScript and express-status-monitor in JavaScript. 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 express-status-monitor?
Choose Grafana if you want the larger community (76,792 stars) or its AGPL-3.0 licence terms. Choose express-status-monitor if its feature set, stack or MIT licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.