head to head · open source
telegraf vs kubeshark
telegraf has 17,893 GitHub stars, 5,846 forks, 449 open issues and last shipped yesterday. kubeshark has 12,126 stars, 558 forks, 149 open issues and last shipped 2 days ago. telegraf leads on adoption by 48% (17,893 vs 12,126 stars). telegraf is written in Go under MIT; kubeshark is written in Go under Apache-2.0. telegraf has attracted 33% as many forks as stars, kubeshark 5%. telegraf was the more recently maintained of the two, and both are self-hostable with no licence fee. The two share 1 topic tag (golang), 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
| telegraf | kubeshark | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 18K | ★ 12K |
| License | MIT | Apache-2.0 |
| Written in | Go | Go |
| Last push | 2026-11-02 | 2026-11-01 |
| Forks | ⑂ 5.8K | ⑂ 558 |
| Self-hosting | Yes | Yes |
| Data ownership | Your server | Your server |
pick telegraf if
- You weight community size — 18K stars and counting
- You want the MIT license terms
- Your stack matches Go
- 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 telegraf
Telegraf Telegraf is an agent for collecting, processing, aggregating, and writing metrics, logs, and other arbitrary data. Offers a comprehensive suite of over 300 plugins, covering a wide range of functionalities including system monitoring, cloud services, and message passing Enables the integration of user defined code to collect, transform, and transmit data efficiently Compiles into a standalone static binary without any external dependencies, ensuring a streamlined deployment process Utilizes TOML for configuration, providing a user friendly and unambiguous setup experience Developed with contributions…
read the full telegraf overview →
About kubeshark
Network Observability for SREs & AI Agents Live Demo · Docs Kubeshark indexes cluster wide network traffic at the kernel level using eBPF — delivering instant answers to any query using network, API, and Kubernetes semantics. What you can do: Download Retrospective PCAPs — cluster wide packet captures filtered by nodes, time, workloads, and IPs. Store PCAPs for long term retention and later investigation. Visualize Network Data — explore traffic matching queries with API, Kubernetes, or network semantics through a real time dashboard. See Encrypted Traffic in Plain Text — automatically decrypt TLS/mTLS traffic…
read the full kubeshark overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is telegraf or kubeshark more popular?
telegraf has 17,893 GitHub stars and kubeshark has 12,126. telegraf has the larger community by that measure.
Are telegraf and kubeshark free?
Both are open source. telegraf is licensed under MIT and kubeshark under Apache-2.0. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between telegraf and kubeshark?
telegraf is written in Go 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, telegraf or kubeshark?
Choose telegraf if you want the larger community (17,893 stars) or its MIT licence terms. Choose kubeshark if its feature set, stack or Apache-2.0 licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.