head to head · open source
Grafana vs gf
Grafana has 77,638 GitHub stars, 14,905 forks, 3,326 open issues and last shipped yesterday. gf has 13,294 stars, 1,731 forks, 148 open issues and last shipped 4 days ago. Grafana leads on adoption by 484% (77,638 vs 13,294 stars). Grafana is written in TypeScript under AGPL-3.0; gf is written in Go under MIT. Grafana has attracted 19% as many forks as stars, gf 13%. Grafana was the more recently maintained of the two, and both are self-hostable with no licence fee. The two share 1 topic tag (go), 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 | gf | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 78K | ★ 13K |
| License | AGPL-3.0 | MIT |
| Written in | TypeScript | Go |
| Last push | 2026-11-02 | 2026-10-30 |
| Forks | ⑂ 15K | ⑂ 1.7K |
| 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 gf if
- You want the gf feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the MIT license terms
- Your stack matches Go
- You evaluated both and gf 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 gf
English 简体中文 GoFrame is a powerful framework for faster, easier, and more efficient project development. Use it as a full application framework, or pick individual components as needed. Installation GoFrame requires Go 1.23 or later. In an existing module, add the framework: Install the gf CLI: Usage Create main.go : Run it: Open To scaffold a project with the gf CLI: Documentation Official Site: Official Site(en): 国内镜像： Mirror Site: Mirror Site: Offline Docs GoDoc API: Doc Source: Contributors 💖 Thanks to all the contributors who made GoFrame possible 💖 License GoFrame is licensed under the MIT License, 100%…
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Frequently asked questions
Is Grafana or gf more popular?
Grafana has 77,638 GitHub stars and gf has 13,294. Grafana has the larger community by that measure.
Are Grafana and gf free?
Both are open source. Grafana is licensed under AGPL-3.0 and gf under MIT. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between Grafana and gf?
Grafana is written in TypeScript and gf in Go. 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 gf?
Choose Grafana if you want the larger community (77,638 stars) or its AGPL-3.0 licence terms. Choose gf if its feature set, stack or MIT licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.