head to head · open source
Uptime Kuma vs Grafana
Uptime Kuma has 91,477 GitHub stars, 8,426 forks, 805 open issues and last shipped yesterday. Grafana has 76,791 stars, 14,749 forks, 3,326 open issues and last shipped yesterday. Uptime Kuma leads on adoption by 19% (91,477 vs 76,791 stars). Uptime Kuma is written in JavaScript under MIT; Grafana is written in TypeScript under AGPL-3.0. Uptime Kuma has attracted 9% as many forks as stars, Grafana 19%. Uptime Kuma was the more recently maintained of the two, and both are self-hostable with no licence fee. The two share 1 topic tag (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
| Uptime Kuma | Grafana | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 91K | ★ 77K |
| License | MIT | AGPL-3.0 |
| Written in | JavaScript | TypeScript |
| Last push | 2026-09-17 | 2026-09-17 |
| Forks | ⑂ 8.4K | ⑂ 15K |
| Self-hosting | Yes | Yes |
| Data ownership | Your server | Your server |
pick Uptime Kuma if
- You weight community size — 91K stars and counting
- You want the MIT license terms
- Your stack matches JavaScript
- You value the larger contributor base for long-term maintenance
pick Grafana if
- You want the Grafana feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the AGPL-3.0 license terms
- Your stack matches TypeScript
- You evaluated both and Grafana fits your workflow better
About Uptime Kuma
Uptime Kuma is a free, MIT licensed, self hosted monitoring tool with a reactive web dashboard, built for operators and teams that want to watch their own HTTP, TCP, and DNS endpoints and keep the resulting data on their own infrastructure.
read the full Uptime Kuma overview →
About Grafana
Grafana is an open source observability platform for visualizing metrics, logs, and traces across diverse data sources. It runs in the infrastructure and operations ecosystem, designed for teams needing unified visibility into system behavior without vendor lock in. Built with TypeScript and Go, it provides a composable architecture that integrates with existing toolchains.
read the full Grafana overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is Uptime Kuma or Grafana more popular?
Uptime Kuma has 91,477 GitHub stars and Grafana has 76,791. Uptime Kuma has the larger community by that measure.
Are Uptime Kuma and Grafana free?
Both are open source. Uptime Kuma is licensed under MIT and Grafana under AGPL-3.0. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between Uptime Kuma and Grafana?
Uptime Kuma is written in JavaScript and Grafana in TypeScript. The practical differences are community size, licence terms, language stack and release cadence — all compared in the table above.
Which should I choose, Uptime Kuma or Grafana?
Choose Uptime Kuma if you want the larger community (91,477 stars) or its MIT licence terms. Choose Grafana if its feature set, stack or AGPL-3.0 licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.