head to head · open source
Grafana vs Grafana Loki
Grafana has 76,791 GitHub stars, 14,749 forks, 3,326 open issues and last shipped yesterday. Grafana Loki has 28,909 stars, 4,112 forks, 1,620 open issues and last shipped yesterday. Grafana leads on adoption by 166% (76,791 vs 28,909 stars). Grafana is written in TypeScript under AGPL-3.0; Grafana Loki is written in Go under AGPL-3.0. Grafana has attracted 19% as many forks as stars, Grafana Loki 14%. Grafana was the more recently maintained of the two, and both are self-hostable with no licence fee. The two share 2 topic tags (grafana, hacktoberfest), 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 | Grafana Loki | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 77K | ★ 29K |
| License | AGPL-3.0 | AGPL-3.0 |
| Written in | TypeScript | Go |
| Last push | 2026-09-17 | 2026-09-17 |
| Forks | ⑂ 15K | ⑂ 4.1K |
| 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 Grafana Loki if
- You want the Grafana Loki feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the AGPL-3.0 license terms
- Your stack matches Go
- You evaluated both and Grafana Loki 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 Grafana Loki
Grafana Loki is a log aggregation system designed as the log oriented counterpart to Prometheus. It operates within the cloud native observability ecosystem, specifically targeting Kubernetes and containerized environments. Loki avoids expensive full text indexing by indexing only metadata labels attached to log streams, storing the raw log content in compressed form. This design choice makes Loki significantly simpler to operate and more cost effective than traditional log systems that index every word.
read the full Grafana Loki overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is Grafana or Grafana Loki more popular?
Grafana has 76,791 GitHub stars and Grafana Loki has 28,909. Grafana has the larger community by that measure.
Are Grafana and Grafana Loki free?
Both are open source. Grafana is licensed under AGPL-3.0 and Grafana Loki under AGPL-3.0. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between Grafana and Grafana Loki?
Grafana is written in TypeScript and Grafana Loki 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 Grafana Loki?
Choose Grafana if you want the larger community (76,791 stars) or its AGPL-3.0 licence terms. Choose Grafana Loki if its feature set, stack or AGPL-3.0 licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.