head to head · open source
Grafana vs kiali
Grafana has 77,638 GitHub stars, 14,905 forks, 3,326 open issues and last shipped yesterday. kiali has 3,647 stars, 575 forks, 79 open issues and last shipped yesterday. Grafana leads on adoption by 2,029% (77,638 vs 3,647 stars). Grafana is written in TypeScript under AGPL-3.0; kiali is written in Go under Apache-2.0. Grafana has attracted 19% as many forks as stars, kiali 16%. 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 | kiali | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 78K | ★ 3.6K |
| License | AGPL-3.0 | Apache-2.0 |
| Written in | TypeScript | Go |
| Last push | 2026-11-02 | 2026-11-02 |
| Forks | ⑂ 15K | ⑂ 575 |
| 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 kiali if
- You want the kiali feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the Apache-2.0 license terms
- Your stack matches Go
- You evaluated both and kiali 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 kiali
= Kiali image: about Kiali", link=" :toc: macro :toc title: image: 2.0 license", link="LICENSE"] == Introduction link: is a management console for Istio service mesh. Kiali can be quickly installed as an Istio add on or integrated as a trusted component within a production environment. === Table of contents toc::[] === Contributing First, check the link: section on kiali.io], which provides a brief introduction on contributing, how to report issues and request features, and how to reach us. For those interested in making code contributions, please also check the link:./CONTRIBUTING.md[Contribution Guide]. ===…
read the full kiali overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is Grafana or kiali more popular?
Grafana has 77,638 GitHub stars and kiali has 3,647. Grafana has the larger community by that measure.
Are Grafana and kiali free?
Both are open source. Grafana is licensed under AGPL-3.0 and kiali under Apache-2.0. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between Grafana and kiali?
Grafana is written in TypeScript and kiali 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 kiali?
Choose Grafana if you want the larger community (77,638 stars) or its AGPL-3.0 licence terms. Choose kiali if its feature set, stack or Apache-2.0 licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.