head to head · open source
Grafana vs grimoirelab
Grafana has 76,792 GitHub stars, 14,752 forks, 3,326 open issues and last shipped yesterday. grimoirelab has 626 stars, 231 forks, 78 open issues and last shipped 3 days ago. Grafana leads on adoption by 12,167% (76,792 vs 626 stars). Grafana is written in TypeScript under AGPL-3.0; grimoirelab is written in Shell under GPL-3.0. Grafana has attracted 19% as many forks as stars, grimoirelab 37%. Grafana was the more recently maintained of the two, and both are self-hostable with no licence fee. The two share 2 topic tags (data-visualization, metrics), 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 | grimoirelab | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 77K | ★ 626 |
| License | AGPL-3.0 | GPL-3.0 |
| Written in | TypeScript | Shell |
| Last push | 2026-09-18 | 2026-09-16 |
| Forks | ⑂ 15K | ⑂ 231 |
| 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 grimoirelab if
- You want the grimoirelab feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the GPL-3.0 license terms
- Your stack matches Shell
- You evaluated both and grimoirelab 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 grimoirelab
GrimoireLab is a GPL 3.0 licensed CHAOSS toolset for software development analytics that retrieves data from the systems used to support software development, stores it in databases, enriches it by computing metrics, and makes it available for analytics and visualization, aimed at the people who need to measure development activity rather than guess at it.
read the full grimoirelab overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is Grafana or grimoirelab more popular?
Grafana has 76,792 GitHub stars and grimoirelab has 626. Grafana has the larger community by that measure.
Are Grafana and grimoirelab free?
Both are open source. Grafana is licensed under AGPL-3.0 and grimoirelab under GPL-3.0. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between Grafana and grimoirelab?
Grafana is written in TypeScript and grimoirelab in Shell. 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 grimoirelab?
Choose Grafana if you want the larger community (76,792 stars) or its AGPL-3.0 licence terms. Choose grimoirelab if its feature set, stack or GPL-3.0 licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.