head to head · open source
Grafana vs SysmonTools
Grafana has 77,638 GitHub stars, 14,905 forks, 3,326 open issues and last shipped yesterday. SysmonTools has 1,669 stars, 208 forks, 1 open issues and last shipped 7 months ago. Grafana leads on adoption by 4,552% (77,638 vs 1,669 stars). Grafana is written in TypeScript under AGPL-3.0; SysmonTools is written in TypeScript under GPL-3.0. Grafana has attracted 19% as many forks as stars, SysmonTools 12%. 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 | SysmonTools | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 78K | ★ 1.7K |
| License | AGPL-3.0 | GPL-3.0 |
| Written in | TypeScript | TypeScript |
| Last push | 2026-11-02 | 2026-04-04 |
| Forks | ⑂ 15K | ⑂ 208 |
| 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 SysmonTools if
- You want the SysmonTools feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the GPL-3.0 license terms
- Your stack matches TypeScript
- You evaluated both and SysmonTools 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 SysmonTools
Sysmon Tools A collection of utilities for analyzing, visualizing, and managing Microsoft Sysmon logs — designed for security analysts, DFIR specialists, and threat hunters. What's New in v2.0 Sysmon View has been rewritten from the ground up as a fully open source desktop application — a long requested change by the community. Built with Electron + React + TypeScript , the entire codebase is now open and free of commercial dependencies. Key improvements: Modern dark themed UI with a streamlined analyst workflow Interactive session diagrams with freedom to move and arrange nodes Collapsible nodes —…
read the full SysmonTools overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is Grafana or SysmonTools more popular?
Grafana has 77,638 GitHub stars and SysmonTools has 1,669. Grafana has the larger community by that measure.
Are Grafana and SysmonTools free?
Both are open source. Grafana is licensed under AGPL-3.0 and SysmonTools under GPL-3.0. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between Grafana and SysmonTools?
Grafana is written in TypeScript and SysmonTools 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 SysmonTools?
Choose Grafana if you want the larger community (77,638 stars) or its AGPL-3.0 licence terms. Choose SysmonTools if its feature set, stack or GPL-3.0 licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.