head to head · open source
Grafana vs otelbin
Grafana has 77,638 GitHub stars, 14,905 forks, 3,326 open issues and last shipped yesterday. otelbin has 584 stars, 31 forks, 53 open issues and last shipped yesterday. Grafana leads on adoption by 13,194% (77,638 vs 584 stars). Grafana is written in TypeScript under AGPL-3.0; otelbin is written in TypeScript under Apache-2.0. Grafana has attracted 19% as many forks as stars, otelbin 5%. 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 | otelbin | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 78K | ★ 584 |
| License | AGPL-3.0 | Apache-2.0 |
| Written in | TypeScript | TypeScript |
| Last push | 2026-11-02 | 2026-11-02 |
| Forks | ⑂ 15K | ⑂ 31 |
| 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 otelbin if
- You want the otelbin feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the Apache-2.0 license terms
- Your stack matches TypeScript
- You evaluated both and otelbin 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 otelbin
OTelBin OTelBin is a configuration tool for OpenTelemetry collector pipelines. Introduction · Features · Badges · Tech Stack · Contributing · License Introduction OTelBin is a configuration tool to help you get the most out of the OpenTelemetry Collector. OTelBin hosted with :heart: by the Dash0 people at otelbin.io. Features OTelBin will enable you to: 1. Visualize for you the configured OpenTelemetry Collector pipelines as swimlanes 1. Validate your configuration and highlight errors 1. Enable you to share your OpenTelemetry Collector configurations online (requires login with a GitHub or Google account)…
read the full otelbin overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is Grafana or otelbin more popular?
Grafana has 77,638 GitHub stars and otelbin has 584. Grafana has the larger community by that measure.
Are Grafana and otelbin free?
Both are open source. Grafana is licensed under AGPL-3.0 and otelbin under Apache-2.0. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between Grafana and otelbin?
Grafana is written in TypeScript and otelbin in TypeScript. 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 otelbin?
Choose Grafana if you want the larger community (77,638 stars) or its AGPL-3.0 licence terms. Choose otelbin if its feature set, stack or Apache-2.0 licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.