head to head · open source
Grafana vs swift-metrics
Grafana has 76,792 GitHub stars, 14,752 forks, 3,326 open issues and last shipped yesterday. swift-metrics has 795 stars, 81 forks, 8 open issues and last shipped 9 days ago. Grafana leads on adoption by 9,559% (76,792 vs 795 stars). Grafana is written in TypeScript under AGPL-3.0; swift-metrics is written in Swift under Apache-2.0. Grafana has attracted 19% as many forks as stars, swift-metrics 10%. 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.
← all 13541 open source comparisons
Side by side
| Grafana | swift-metrics | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 77K | ★ 795 |
| License | AGPL-3.0 | Apache-2.0 |
| Written in | TypeScript | Swift |
| Last push | 2026-09-18 | 2026-09-10 |
| Forks | ⑂ 15K | ⑂ 81 |
| 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 swift-metrics if
- You want the swift-metrics feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the Apache-2.0 license terms
- Your stack matches Swift
- You evaluated both and swift-metrics 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 swift-metrics
SwiftMetrics is the Apache 2.0 metrics API package for Swift, a shared abstraction that lets server side and cross platform Swift applications emit metrics for observability through whichever backend an application owner selects rather than tying emission code to a single library.
read the full swift-metrics overview →
More in Infrastructure & Operations
Related comparisons
More Monitoring & Observability projects
Compare either of these against the rest of the Monitoring & Observability field.
Frequently asked questions
Is Grafana or swift-metrics more popular?
Grafana has 76,792 GitHub stars and swift-metrics has 795. Grafana has the larger community by that measure.
Are Grafana and swift-metrics free?
Both are open source. Grafana is licensed under AGPL-3.0 and swift-metrics under Apache-2.0. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between Grafana and swift-metrics?
Grafana is written in TypeScript and swift-metrics 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 swift-metrics?
Choose Grafana if you want the larger community (76,792 stars) or its AGPL-3.0 licence terms. Choose swift-metrics if its feature set, stack or Apache-2.0 licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.