head to head · open source
Grafana vs log
Grafana has 76,792 GitHub stars, 14,752 forks, 3,326 open issues and last shipped today. log has 3,393 stars, 102 forks, 41 open issues and last shipped 15 days ago. Grafana leads on adoption by 2,163% (76,792 vs 3,393 stars). Grafana is written in TypeScript under AGPL-3.0; log is written in Go under MIT. Grafana has attracted 19% as many forks as stars, log 3%. 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 | log | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 77K | ★ 3.4K |
| License | AGPL-3.0 | MIT |
| Written in | TypeScript | Go |
| Last push | 2026-09-18 | 2026-09-03 |
| Forks | ⑂ 15K | ⑂ 102 |
| 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 log if
- You want the log feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the MIT license terms
- Your stack matches Go
- You evaluated both and log 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 log
Log A minimal and colorful Go logging library. 🪵 It provides a leveled structured human readable logger with a small API. Unlike [standard log ][stdlog], the Charm logger provides customizable colorful human readable logging with batteries included. Uses [Lip Gloss][lipgloss] to style and colorize the output. Colorful, human readable format. Ability to customize the time stamp format. Skips caller frames and marks function as helpers. Leveled logging. Text, JSON, and Logfmt formatters. Store and retrieve logger in and from context. Slog handler. Standard log adapter. Usage Use go get to download the dependency. …
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Frequently asked questions
Is Grafana or log more popular?
Grafana has 76,792 GitHub stars and log has 3,393. Grafana has the larger community by that measure.
Are Grafana and log free?
Both are open source. Grafana is licensed under AGPL-3.0 and log under MIT. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between Grafana and log?
Grafana is written in TypeScript and log 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 log?
Choose Grafana if you want the larger community (76,792 stars) or its AGPL-3.0 licence terms. Choose log if its feature set, stack or MIT licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.