head to head · open source
OpenObserve vs grimoirelab
OpenObserve has 22,777 GitHub stars, 1,179 forks, 598 open issues and last shipped yesterday. grimoirelab has 639 stars, 234 forks, 78 open issues and last shipped 2 days ago. OpenObserve leads on adoption by 3,464% (22,777 vs 639 stars). OpenObserve is written in TypeScript under AGPL-3.0; grimoirelab is written in Shell under GPL-3.0. OpenObserve has attracted 5% as many forks as stars, grimoirelab 37%. OpenObserve was the more recently maintained of the two, and both are self-hostable with no licence fee. The two share 1 topic tag (metrics), 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
| OpenObserve | grimoirelab | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 23K | ★ 639 |
| License | AGPL-3.0 | GPL-3.0 |
| Written in | TypeScript | Shell |
| Last push | 2026-11-04 | 2026-11-03 |
| Forks | ⑂ 1.2K | ⑂ 234 |
| Self-hosting | Yes | Yes |
| Data ownership | Your server | Your server |
pick OpenObserve if
- You weight community size — 23K 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 grimoirelab if
- You want the grimoirelab feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the GPL-3.0 license terms
- Your stack matches Shell
- You evaluated both and grimoirelab fits your workflow better
About OpenObserve
Open source Datadog alternative for logs, metrics, traces, and frontend monitoring. Modern observability platform: 10x easier, 140x lower storage cost, high performance, petabyte scale. Cloud · Documentation · Slack · Quickstart OpenObserve (O2) is a cloud native observability platform for logs, metrics, traces, analytics, Real User Monitoring (RUM), and AI/LLM observability. It's a cost effective alternative to Datadog, Splunk, and Elasticsearch for teams that need full observability without the complexity or cost — with Parquet columnar storage and an S3 native design that cuts storage costs by up to 140x…
read the full OpenObserve overview →
About grimoirelab
GrimoireLab GrimoireLab is a CHAOSS toolset for software development analytics. It includes a coordinated set of tools to retrieve data from systems used to support software development (repositories), store it in databases, enrich it by computing relevant metrics, and make it easy to run analytics and visualizations on it. You can learn more about GrimoireLab in the GrimoireLab tutorial, or visit the GrimoireLab website. Metrics available in GrimoireLab are, in part, developed in the CHAOSS project. For more information regarding CHAOSS metrics, see the latest release at: Getting started To ease the newcomer…
read the full grimoirelab overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is OpenObserve or grimoirelab more popular?
OpenObserve has 22,777 GitHub stars and grimoirelab has 639. OpenObserve has the larger community by that measure.
Are OpenObserve and grimoirelab free?
Both are open source. OpenObserve is licensed under AGPL-3.0 and grimoirelab under GPL-3.0. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between OpenObserve and grimoirelab?
OpenObserve is written in TypeScript and grimoirelab in Shell. The practical differences are community size, licence terms, language stack and release cadence — all compared in the table above.
Which should I choose, OpenObserve or grimoirelab?
Choose OpenObserve if you want the larger community (22,777 stars) or its AGPL-3.0 licence terms. Choose grimoirelab if its feature set, stack or GPL-3.0 licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.