head to head · open source
Grafana vs nginx-module-vts
Grafana has 76,792 GitHub stars, 14,752 forks, 3,326 open issues and last shipped yesterday. nginx-module-vts has 3,503 stars, 489 forks, 11 open issues and last shipped 7 days ago. Grafana leads on adoption by 2,092% (76,792 vs 3,503 stars). Grafana is written in TypeScript under AGPL-3.0; nginx-module-vts is written in C under BSD-2-Clause. Grafana has attracted 19% as many forks as stars, nginx-module-vts 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 | nginx-module-vts | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 77K | ★ 3.5K |
| License | AGPL-3.0 | BSD-2-Clause |
| Written in | TypeScript | C |
| Last push | 2026-09-18 | 2026-09-12 |
| Forks | ⑂ 15K | ⑂ 489 |
| 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 nginx-module-vts if
- You want the nginx-module-vts feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the BSD-2-Clause license terms
- Your stack matches C
- You evaluated both and nginx-module-vts 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 nginx-module-vts
nginx module vts is an open source Nginx module that tracks and exposes per virtual host traffic statistics — request counts, response codes, and traffic totals — as JSON or HTML, built for Nginx operators who need visibility into vhost traffic without running a separate metrics agent.
read the full nginx-module-vts overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is Grafana or nginx-module-vts more popular?
Grafana has 76,792 GitHub stars and nginx-module-vts has 3,503. Grafana has the larger community by that measure.
Are Grafana and nginx-module-vts free?
Both are open source. Grafana is licensed under AGPL-3.0 and nginx-module-vts under BSD-2-Clause. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between Grafana and nginx-module-vts?
Grafana is written in TypeScript and nginx-module-vts 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 nginx-module-vts?
Choose Grafana if you want the larger community (76,792 stars) or its AGPL-3.0 licence terms. Choose nginx-module-vts if its feature set, stack or BSD-2-Clause licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.