head to head · open source
Grafana vs logging-log4j2
Grafana has 76,792 GitHub stars, 14,752 forks, 3,326 open issues and last shipped today. logging-log4j2 has 3,636 stars, 1,743 forks, 212 open issues and last shipped yesterday. Grafana leads on adoption by 2,012% (76,792 vs 3,636 stars). Grafana is written in TypeScript under AGPL-3.0; logging-log4j2 is written in Java under Apache-2.0. Grafana has attracted 19% as many forks as stars, logging-log4j2 48%. 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 | logging-log4j2 | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 77K | ★ 3.6K |
| License | AGPL-3.0 | Apache-2.0 |
| Written in | TypeScript | Java |
| Last push | 2026-09-18 | 2026-09-17 |
| Forks | ⑂ 15K | ⑂ 1.7K |
| 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 logging-log4j2 if
- You want the logging-log4j2 feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the Apache-2.0 license terms
- Your stack matches Java
- You evaluated both and logging-log4j2 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 logging-log4j2
//// Licensed to the Apache Software Foundation (ASF) under one or more contributor license agreements. See the NOTICE file distributed with this work for additional information regarding copyright ownership. The ASF licenses this file to You under the Apache License, Version 2.0 (the "License"); you may not use this file except in compliance with the License. You may obtain a copy of the License at Unless required by applicable law or agreed to in writing, software distributed under the License is distributed on an "AS IS" BASIS, WITHOUT WARRANTIES OR CONDITIONS OF ANY KIND, either express or implied. See the Li…
read the full logging-log4j2 overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is Grafana or logging-log4j2 more popular?
Grafana has 76,792 GitHub stars and logging-log4j2 has 3,636. Grafana has the larger community by that measure.
Are Grafana and logging-log4j2 free?
Both are open source. Grafana is licensed under AGPL-3.0 and logging-log4j2 under Apache-2.0. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between Grafana and logging-log4j2?
Grafana is written in TypeScript and logging-log4j2 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 logging-log4j2?
Choose Grafana if you want the larger community (76,792 stars) or its AGPL-3.0 licence terms. Choose logging-log4j2 if its feature set, stack or Apache-2.0 licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.