head to head · open source
Grafana vs Nagios
Grafana has 76,791 GitHub stars, 14,749 forks, 3,326 open issues and last shipped yesterday. Nagios has 2,043 stars, 481 forks, 206 open issues and last shipped 1 months ago. Grafana leads on adoption by 3,659% (76,791 vs 2,043 stars). Grafana is written in TypeScript under AGPL-3.0; Nagios is written in C under GPL-2.0. Grafana has attracted 19% as many forks as stars, Nagios 24%. 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 | Nagios | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 77K | ★ 2.0K |
| License | AGPL-3.0 | GPL-2.0 |
| Written in | TypeScript | C |
| Last push | 2026-09-17 | 2026-08-07 |
| Forks | ⑂ 15K | ⑂ 481 |
| 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 Nagios if
- You want the Nagios feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the GPL-2.0 license terms
- Your stack matches C
- You evaluated both and Nagios 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 Nagios
Nagios is a monitoring program for hosts, services, and network resources. It is written in C and released under the GNU General Public License, version 2.0. The project belongs to the Infrastructure & Operations / Monitoring & Observability ecosystem. Nagios 4.x can check network services, monitor host resources, expose status and history through optional CGI programs, and send notifications when problems occur or are resolved.
read the full Nagios overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is Grafana or Nagios more popular?
Grafana has 76,791 GitHub stars and Nagios has 2,043. Grafana has the larger community by that measure.
Are Grafana and Nagios free?
Both are open source. Grafana is licensed under AGPL-3.0 and Nagios under GPL-2.0. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between Grafana and Nagios?
Grafana is written in TypeScript and Nagios in C. 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 Nagios?
Choose Grafana if you want the larger community (76,791 stars) or its AGPL-3.0 licence terms. Choose Nagios if its feature set, stack or GPL-2.0 licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.