head to head · open source
Grafana vs logbook
Grafana has 76,792 GitHub stars, 14,752 forks, 3,326 open issues and last shipped today. logbook has 2,065 stars, 288 forks, 26 open issues and last shipped today. Grafana leads on adoption by 3,619% (76,792 vs 2,065 stars). Grafana is written in TypeScript under AGPL-3.0; logbook is written in Java under MIT. Grafana has attracted 19% as many forks as stars, logbook 14%. Grafana was the more recently maintained of the two, and both are self-hostable with no licence fee. The two share 1 topic tag (monitoring), 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 | logbook | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 77K | ★ 2.1K |
| License | AGPL-3.0 | MIT |
| Written in | TypeScript | Java |
| Last push | 2026-09-18 | 2026-09-18 |
| Forks | ⑂ 15K | ⑂ 288 |
| 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 logbook if
- You want the logbook feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the MIT license terms
- Your stack matches Java
- You evaluated both and logbook 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 logbook
Logbook: HTTP request and response logging Logbook noun, /lɑɡ bʊk/: A book in which measurements from the ship's log are recorded, along with other salient details of the voyage. Logbook is an extensible Java library to enable complete request and response logging for different client and server side technologies. It satisfies a special need by a) allowing web application developers to log any HTTP traffic that an application receives or sends b) in a way that makes it easy to persist and analyze it later. This can be useful for traditional log analysis, meeting audit requirements or investigating individual hist…
read the full logbook overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is Grafana or logbook more popular?
Grafana has 76,792 GitHub stars and logbook has 2,065. Grafana has the larger community by that measure.
Are Grafana and logbook free?
Both are open source. Grafana is licensed under AGPL-3.0 and logbook under MIT. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between Grafana and logbook?
Grafana is written in TypeScript and logbook in Java. 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 logbook?
Choose Grafana if you want the larger community (76,792 stars) or its AGPL-3.0 licence terms. Choose logbook if its feature set, stack or MIT licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.