head to head · open source
Grafana Loki vs Logstash
Grafana Loki has 28,909 GitHub stars, 4,112 forks, 1,620 open issues and last shipped yesterday. Logstash has 14,944 stars, 3,496 forks, 2,254 open issues and last shipped yesterday. Grafana Loki leads on adoption by 93% (28,909 vs 14,944 stars). Grafana Loki is written in Go under AGPL-3.0; Logstash is written in Java under a custom or non-standard licence. Grafana Loki has attracted 14% as many forks as stars, Logstash 23%. Grafana Loki was the more recently maintained of the two, and both are self-hostable with no licence fee. The two share 1 topic tag (logging), 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 Loki | Logstash | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 29K | ★ 15K |
| License | AGPL-3.0 | Custom / other |
| Written in | Go | Java |
| Last push | 2026-09-17 | 2026-09-17 |
| Forks | ⑂ 4.1K | ⑂ 3.5K |
| Self-hosting | Yes | Yes |
| Data ownership | Your server | Your server |
pick Grafana Loki if
- You weight community size — 29K stars and counting
- You want the AGPL-3.0 license terms
- Your stack matches Go
- You value the larger contributor base for long-term maintenance
pick Logstash if
- You want the Logstash feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the Custom / other license terms
- Your stack matches Java
- You evaluated both and Logstash fits your workflow better
About Grafana Loki
Grafana Loki is a log aggregation system designed as the log oriented counterpart to Prometheus. It operates within the cloud native observability ecosystem, specifically targeting Kubernetes and containerized environments. Loki avoids expensive full text indexing by indexing only metadata labels attached to log streams, storing the raw log content in compressed form. This design choice makes Loki significantly simpler to operate and more cost effective than traditional log systems that index every word.
read the full Grafana Loki overview →
About Logstash
Logstash is a server side data processing pipeline that transports and processes logs, events, or other data. It is part of the Elastic Stack with Beats, Elasticsearch, and Kibana, and it sits in the Infrastructure & Operations / Monitoring & Observability category. The project uses Java and JRuby, and its topics describe it as an ETL framework for logging, real time processing, and streaming.
read the full Logstash overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is Grafana Loki or Logstash more popular?
Grafana Loki has 28,909 GitHub stars and Logstash has 14,944. Grafana Loki has the larger community by that measure.
Are Grafana Loki and Logstash free?
Both are open source. Grafana Loki is licensed under AGPL-3.0, and Logstash has no licence declared in this registry. Both are free to self-host.
What is the difference between Grafana Loki and Logstash?
Grafana Loki is written in Go and Logstash in Java. The practical differences are community size, licence terms, language stack and release cadence — all compared in the table above.
Which should I choose, Grafana Loki or Logstash?
Choose Grafana Loki if you want the larger community (28,909 stars) or its AGPL-3.0 licence terms. Choose Logstash if its feature set, stack or Custom / other licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.