head to head · open source
telegraf vs pyroscope
telegraf has 17,893 GitHub stars, 5,846 forks, 449 open issues and last shipped yesterday. pyroscope has 11,710 stars, 833 forks, 400 open issues and last shipped yesterday. telegraf leads on adoption by 53% (17,893 vs 11,710 stars). telegraf is written in Go under MIT; pyroscope is written in Go under AGPL-3.0. telegraf has attracted 33% as many forks as stars, pyroscope 7%. pyroscope was the more recently maintained of the two, and both are self-hostable with no licence fee. The two share 3 topic tags (golang, hacktoberfest, monitoring), 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 | pyroscope | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 18K | ★ 12K |
| License | MIT | AGPL-3.0 |
| Written in | Go | Go |
| Last push | 2026-11-02 | 2026-11-02 |
| Forks | ⑂ 5.8K | ⑂ 833 |
| 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 pyroscope if
- You want the pyroscope 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 pyroscope 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 pyroscope
🎉 Announcement: Pyroscope 2.0 is here! Pyroscope 2.0 makes the new v2 architecture the default. Profiles are written directly to object storage, removing the need for in memory ingesters and local disks simplifying operations and lowering resource usage at scale. Existing v1 deployments can opt in via a flag and migrate without data loss. Read the 2.0 release notes and the v2 architecture overview. Upgrading from v1? See the migration guide. Want the full story? Watch the GrafanaCON 2026 talk Pyroscope 2.0: Continuous Profiling Architecture Deep Dive . What is Grafana Pyroscope? Grafana Pyroscope is a…
read the full pyroscope overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is telegraf or pyroscope more popular?
telegraf has 17,893 GitHub stars and pyroscope has 11,710. telegraf has the larger community by that measure.
Are telegraf and pyroscope free?
Both are open source. telegraf is licensed under MIT and pyroscope under AGPL-3.0. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between telegraf and pyroscope?
telegraf is written in Go and pyroscope 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 pyroscope?
Choose telegraf if you want the larger community (17,893 stars) or its MIT licence terms. Choose pyroscope if its feature set, stack or AGPL-3.0 licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.