head to head · open source
Grafana vs logging-operator
Grafana has 77,627 GitHub stars, 14,895 forks, 3,326 open issues and last shipped yesterday. logging-operator has 1,716 stars, 369 forks, 42 open issues and last shipped 3 days ago. Grafana leads on adoption by 4,424% (77,627 vs 1,716 stars). Grafana is written in TypeScript under AGPL-3.0; logging-operator is written in Go under Apache-2.0. Grafana has attracted 19% as many forks as stars, logging-operator 22%. 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-operator | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 78K | ★ 1.7K |
| License | AGPL-3.0 | Apache-2.0 |
| Written in | TypeScript | Go |
| Last push | 2026-11-02 | 2026-10-31 |
| Forks | ⑂ 15K | ⑂ 369 |
| 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 logging-operator if
- You want the logging-operator 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 logging-operator 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 logging-operator
Logging operator The Logging operator is now a CNCF Sandbox project. The Logging operator solves your logging related problems in Kubernetes environments by automating the deployment and configuration of a Kubernetes logging pipeline. 1. The operator deploys and configures a log collector (currently a Fluent Bit DaemonSet) on every node to collect container and application logs from the node file system. 1. Fluent Bit queries the Kubernetes API and enriches the logs with metadata about the pods, and transfers both the logs and the metadata to a log forwarder instance. 1. The log forwarder instance receives…
read the full logging-operator overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is Grafana or logging-operator more popular?
Grafana has 77,627 GitHub stars and logging-operator has 1,716. Grafana has the larger community by that measure.
Are Grafana and logging-operator free?
Both are open source. Grafana is licensed under AGPL-3.0 and logging-operator under Apache-2.0. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between Grafana and logging-operator?
Grafana is written in TypeScript and logging-operator 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 logging-operator?
Choose Grafana if you want the larger community (77,627 stars) or its AGPL-3.0 licence terms. Choose logging-operator if its feature set, stack or Apache-2.0 licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.