head to head · open source
Grafana vs pg_activity
Grafana has 77,638 GitHub stars, 14,905 forks, 3,326 open issues and last shipped yesterday. pg_activity has 3,053 stars, 195 forks, 16 open issues and last shipped 1 months ago. Grafana leads on adoption by 2,443% (77,638 vs 3,053 stars). Grafana is written in TypeScript under AGPL-3.0; pg_activity is written in Python under PostgreSQL. Grafana has attracted 19% as many forks as stars, pg_activity 6%. 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 | pg_activity | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 78K | ★ 3.1K |
| License | AGPL-3.0 | PostgreSQL |
| Written in | TypeScript | Python |
| Last push | 2026-11-02 | 2026-09-21 |
| Forks | ⑂ 15K | ⑂ 195 |
| 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 pg_activity if
- You want the pg_activity feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the PostgreSQL license terms
- Your stack matches Python
- You evaluated both and pg_activity 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 pg_activity
Command line tool for PostgreSQL server activity monitoring. Installation From distribution packages The simplest way to install pg\ activity is through the package manager of your Linux distribution, if it ships with a package. E.g., on Debian based distributions (e.g. Debian, Ubuntu, Mint...): $ sudo apt install pg activity (on Debian bullseye, the current stable version, a backport is available: apt install pg activity/bullseye backports ). The PostgreSQL Global Development Group (PGDG) also provides packages for RPM based ( and Debian based distributions ( Note: distribution packages may not be up to date…
read the full pg_activity overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is Grafana or pg_activity more popular?
Grafana has 77,638 GitHub stars and pg_activity has 3,053. Grafana has the larger community by that measure.
Are Grafana and pg_activity free?
Both are open source. Grafana is licensed under AGPL-3.0 and pg_activity under PostgreSQL. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between Grafana and pg_activity?
Grafana is written in TypeScript and pg_activity 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 pg_activity?
Choose Grafana if you want the larger community (77,638 stars) or its AGPL-3.0 licence terms. Choose pg_activity if its feature set, stack or PostgreSQL licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.