head to head · open source
Grafana vs viztracer
Grafana has 76,791 GitHub stars, 14,749 forks, 3,326 open issues and last shipped yesterday. viztracer has 7,743 stars, 475 forks, 33 open issues and last shipped yesterday. Grafana leads on adoption by 892% (76,791 vs 7,743 stars). Grafana is written in TypeScript under AGPL-3.0; viztracer is written in Python under Apache-2.0. Grafana has attracted 19% as many forks as stars, viztracer 6%. 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 | viztracer | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 77K | ★ 7.7K |
| License | AGPL-3.0 | Apache-2.0 |
| Written in | TypeScript | Python |
| Last push | 2026-09-17 | 2026-09-17 |
| Forks | ⑂ 15K | ⑂ 475 |
| 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 viztracer if
- You want the viztracer feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the Apache-2.0 license terms
- Your stack matches Python
- You evaluated both and viztracer 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 viztracer
VizTracer is a low overhead Python tracing, debugging and profiling tool that records code execution and renders it as an interactive timeline with source code, built for Python developers who need to see what their scripts, threads, subprocesses, async tasks and PyTorch calls are actually doing.
read the full viztracer overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is Grafana or viztracer more popular?
Grafana has 76,791 GitHub stars and viztracer has 7,743. Grafana has the larger community by that measure.
Are Grafana and viztracer free?
Both are open source. Grafana is licensed under AGPL-3.0 and viztracer under Apache-2.0. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between Grafana and viztracer?
Grafana is written in TypeScript and viztracer 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 viztracer?
Choose Grafana if you want the larger community (76,791 stars) or its AGPL-3.0 licence terms. Choose viztracer if its feature set, stack or Apache-2.0 licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.