head to head · open source
Grafana vs Pulse
Grafana has 76,791 GitHub stars, 14,749 forks, 3,326 open issues and last shipped yesterday. Pulse has 7,217 stars, 376 forks, 46 open issues and last shipped 1 months ago. Grafana leads on adoption by 964% (76,791 vs 7,217 stars). Grafana is written in TypeScript under AGPL-3.0; Pulse is written in Swift under MIT. Grafana has attracted 19% as many forks as stars, Pulse 5%. 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 | Pulse | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 77K | ★ 7.2K |
| License | AGPL-3.0 | MIT |
| Written in | TypeScript | Swift |
| Last push | 2026-09-17 | 2026-08-15 |
| Forks | ⑂ 15K | ⑂ 376 |
| 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 Pulse if
- You want the Pulse feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the MIT license terms
- Your stack matches Swift
- You evaluated both and Pulse 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 Pulse
Pulse is an MIT licensed Swift logging framework for Apple platforms that records logs and URLSession network requests inside iOS, macOS, tvOS, watchOS, and visionOS apps, then displays them through SwiftUI views so developers and QA teams can inspect and share them directly from the device.
read the full Pulse overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is Grafana or Pulse more popular?
Grafana has 76,791 GitHub stars and Pulse has 7,217. Grafana has the larger community by that measure.
Are Grafana and Pulse free?
Both are open source. Grafana is licensed under AGPL-3.0 and Pulse under MIT. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between Grafana and Pulse?
Grafana is written in TypeScript and Pulse in Swift. 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 Pulse?
Choose Grafana if you want the larger community (76,791 stars) or its AGPL-3.0 licence terms. Choose Pulse if its feature set, stack or MIT licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.