head to head · open source
Grafana vs ktop
Grafana has 77,638 GitHub stars, 14,905 forks, 3,326 open issues and last shipped yesterday. ktop has 1,116 stars, 25 forks, 11 open issues and last shipped 4 months ago. Grafana leads on adoption by 6,857% (77,638 vs 1,116 stars). Grafana is written in TypeScript under AGPL-3.0; ktop is written in Go under Apache-2.0. Grafana has attracted 19% as many forks as stars, ktop 2%. Grafana was the more recently maintained of the two, and both are self-hostable with no licence fee. The two share 1 topic tag (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 | ktop | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 78K | ★ 1.1K |
| License | AGPL-3.0 | Apache-2.0 |
| Written in | TypeScript | Go |
| Last push | 2026-11-02 | 2026-07-03 |
| Forks | ⑂ 15K | ⑂ 25 |
| 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 ktop if
- You want the ktop 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 ktop 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 ktop
A top like tool for your Kubernetes cluster. Following the tradition of Unix/Linux top tools, ktop is a tool that displays useful metrics information about nodes, pods, and other workload resources running in a Kubernetes cluster. Features Real Time Monitoring Continuously updated view of nodes, pods, and containers Drill Down Navigation Explore from cluster overview → node → pod → container logs Zero Cluster Installation Runs locally using your kubeconfig; no agents or server side components Works Anywhere kubectl Works Connects through the Kubernetes API; no direct node access required Streaming Container Logs…
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Frequently asked questions
Is Grafana or ktop more popular?
Grafana has 77,638 GitHub stars and ktop has 1,116. Grafana has the larger community by that measure.
Are Grafana and ktop free?
Both are open source. Grafana is licensed under AGPL-3.0 and ktop under Apache-2.0. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between Grafana and ktop?
Grafana is written in TypeScript and ktop 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 ktop?
Choose Grafana if you want the larger community (77,638 stars) or its AGPL-3.0 licence terms. Choose ktop if its feature set, stack or Apache-2.0 licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.