head to head · open source
Grafana vs opentelemetry-python
Grafana has 76,792 GitHub stars, 14,752 forks, 3,326 open issues and last shipped today. opentelemetry-python has 2,637 stars, 1,005 forks, 425 open issues and last shipped yesterday. Grafana leads on adoption by 2,812% (76,792 vs 2,637 stars). Grafana is written in TypeScript under AGPL-3.0; opentelemetry-python is written in Python under Apache-2.0. Grafana has attracted 19% as many forks as stars, opentelemetry-python 38%. Grafana was the more recently maintained of the two, and both are self-hostable with no licence fee. The two share 1 topic tag (metrics), 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 | opentelemetry-python | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 77K | ★ 2.6K |
| License | AGPL-3.0 | Apache-2.0 |
| Written in | TypeScript | Python |
| Last push | 2026-09-18 | 2026-09-17 |
| Forks | ⑂ 15K | ⑂ 1.0K |
| 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 opentelemetry-python if
- You want the opentelemetry-python feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the Apache-2.0 license terms
- Your stack matches Python
- You evaluated both and opentelemetry-python 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 opentelemetry-python
OpenTelemetry Python Project Status See the OpenTelemetry Instrumentation for Python. Project versioning information and stability guarantees can be found here. Breaking Changes [!IMPORTANT] We are working on stabilizing the Log signal which would require making deprecations and breaking changes. We will try to reduce the releases that may require an update to your code, especially for instrumentations or for SDK developers. Getting started You can find the getting started guide for OpenTelemetry Python here. If you are looking for examples on how to use the OpenTelemetry API to instrument your code manually, or …
read the full opentelemetry-python overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is Grafana or opentelemetry-python more popular?
Grafana has 76,792 GitHub stars and opentelemetry-python has 2,637. Grafana has the larger community by that measure.
Are Grafana and opentelemetry-python free?
Both are open source. Grafana is licensed under AGPL-3.0 and opentelemetry-python under Apache-2.0. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between Grafana and opentelemetry-python?
Grafana is written in TypeScript and opentelemetry-python in Python. 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 opentelemetry-python?
Choose Grafana if you want the larger community (76,792 stars) or its AGPL-3.0 licence terms. Choose opentelemetry-python if its feature set, stack or Apache-2.0 licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.