head to head · open source
monolog vs logchef
monolog has 21,405 GitHub stars, 1,910 forks, 3 open issues and last shipped yesterday. logchef has 899 stars, 56 forks, 9 open issues and last shipped 4 days ago. monolog leads on adoption by 2,281% (21,405 vs 899 stars). monolog is written in PHP under MIT; logchef is written in Go under AGPL-3.0. monolog has attracted 9% as many forks as stars, logchef 6%. monolog 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
| monolog | logchef | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 21K | ★ 899 |
| License | MIT | AGPL-3.0 |
| Written in | PHP | Go |
| Last push | 2026-09-19 | 2026-09-16 |
| Forks | ⑂ 1.9K | ⑂ 56 |
| Self-hosting | Yes | Yes |
| Data ownership | Your server | Your server |
pick monolog if
- You weight community size — 21K stars and counting
- You want the MIT license terms
- Your stack matches PHP
- You value the larger contributor base for long-term maintenance
pick logchef if
- You want the logchef feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the AGPL-3.0 license terms
- Your stack matches Go
- You evaluated both and logchef fits your workflow better
About monolog
Monolog is a logging library for PHP that sends log records to files, sockets, inboxes, databases, and various web services. It ships with the handlers, formatters, and processors needed to route records where they belong, and special handlers allow more advanced logging strategies than a single output stream. The library lives in the PHP ecosystem and is distributed through Packagist as monolog/monolog . It is released under the MIT license and has been developed for sixteen years, with more than twenty one thousand stars and roughly nineteen hundred forks on GitHub.
read the full monolog overview →
About logchef
Logchef is a lightweight, self hosted log analytics and observability interface for ClickHouse and VictoriaLogs, shipped as a single Go binary under the AGPL 3.0 licence, intended for teams that want a strong query and control plane on top of the log backends they already run.
read the full logchef overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is monolog or logchef more popular?
monolog has 21,405 GitHub stars and logchef has 899. monolog has the larger community by that measure.
Are monolog and logchef free?
Both are open source. monolog is licensed under MIT and logchef under AGPL-3.0. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between monolog and logchef?
monolog is written in PHP and logchef 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, monolog or logchef?
Choose monolog if you want the larger community (21,405 stars) or its MIT licence terms. Choose logchef if its feature set, stack or AGPL-3.0 licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.