head to head · open source
Grafana vs kubeshark
Grafana has 76,813 GitHub stars, 14,758 forks, 3,326 open issues and last shipped today. kubeshark has 12,082 stars, 549 forks, 149 open issues and last shipped 11 days ago. Grafana leads on adoption by 536% (76,813 vs 12,082 stars). Grafana is written in TypeScript under AGPL-3.0; kubeshark is written in Go under Apache-2.0. Grafana has attracted 19% as many forks as stars, kubeshark 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.
← all 20902 open source comparisons
Side by side
| Grafana | kubeshark | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 77K | ★ 12K |
| License | AGPL-3.0 | Apache-2.0 |
| Written in | TypeScript | Go |
| Last push | 2026-09-20 | 2026-09-09 |
| Forks | ⑂ 15K | ⑂ 549 |
| 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 kubeshark if
- You want the kubeshark feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the Apache-2.0 license terms
- Your stack matches Go
- You evaluated both and kubeshark 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 kubeshark
Kubeshark is an Apache 2.0, eBPF powered network observability tool for Kubernetes that indexes cluster wide L4/L7 traffic with full Kubernetes context and makes that traffic queryable by AI agents through the Model Context Protocol and by humans through a real time dashboard.
read the full kubeshark 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 kubeshark more popular?
Grafana has 76,813 GitHub stars and kubeshark has 12,082. Grafana has the larger community by that measure.
Are Grafana and kubeshark free?
Both are open source. Grafana is licensed under AGPL-3.0 and kubeshark under Apache-2.0. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between Grafana and kubeshark?
Grafana is written in TypeScript and kubeshark in Go. 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 kubeshark?
Choose Grafana if you want the larger community (76,813 stars) or its AGPL-3.0 licence terms. Choose kubeshark if its feature set, stack or Apache-2.0 licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.