head to head · open source
Grafana vs ktop
Grafana has 76,792 GitHub stars, 14,752 forks, 3,326 open issues and last shipped yesterday. ktop has 1,109 stars, 25 forks, 11 open issues and last shipped 3 months ago. Grafana leads on adoption by 6,824% (76,792 vs 1,109 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.
← all 13541 open source comparisons
Side by side
| Grafana | ktop | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 77K | ★ 1.1K |
| License | AGPL-3.0 | Apache-2.0 |
| Written in | TypeScript | Go |
| Last push | 2026-09-18 | 2026-07-03 |
| Forks | ⑂ 15K | ⑂ 25 |
| 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 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
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 ktop
ktop is an Apache 2.0 licensed, Go based terminal tool that shows live metrics for nodes, pods, and containers in a Kubernetes cluster, built for operators and developers who want top style cluster visibility without installing anything inside the cluster.
More in Infrastructure & Operations
Related comparisons
More Monitoring & Observability projects
Compare either of these against the rest of the Monitoring & Observability field.
Frequently asked questions
Is Grafana or ktop more popular?
Grafana has 76,792 GitHub stars and ktop has 1,109. 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 (76,792 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.