head to head · open source
Grafana Loki vs Vector
Grafana Loki has 29,111 GitHub stars, 4,169 forks, 1,620 open issues and last shipped yesterday. Vector has 22,785 stars, 2,369 forks, 2,512 open issues and last shipped yesterday. Grafana Loki leads on adoption by 28% (29,111 vs 22,785 stars). Grafana Loki is written in Go under AGPL-3.0; Vector is written in Rust under MPL-2.0. Grafana Loki has attracted 14% as many forks as stars, Vector 10%. Grafana Loki was the more recently maintained of the two, and both are self-hostable with no licence fee. The two share 1 topic tag (hacktoberfest), 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
| Grafana Loki | Vector | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 29K | ★ 23K |
| License | AGPL-3.0 | MPL-2.0 |
| Written in | Go | Rust |
| Last push | 2026-11-02 | 2026-11-02 |
| Forks | ⑂ 4.2K | ⑂ 2.4K |
| Self-hosting | Yes | Yes |
| Data ownership | Your server | Your server |
pick Grafana Loki if
- You weight community size — 29K stars and counting
- You want the AGPL-3.0 license terms
- Your stack matches Go
- You value the larger contributor base for long-term maintenance
pick Vector if
- You want the Vector feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the MPL-2.0 license terms
- Your stack matches Rust
- You evaluated both and Vector fits your workflow better
About Grafana Loki
Loki: like Prometheus, but for logs. Loki is a horizontally scalable, highly available, multi tenant log aggregation system inspired by Prometheus. It is designed to be very cost effective and easy to operate. It does not index the contents of the logs, but rather a set of labels for each log stream. Compared to other log aggregation systems, Loki: does not do full text indexing on logs. By storing compressed, unstructured logs and only indexing metadata, Loki is simpler to operate and cheaper to run. indexes and groups log streams using the same labels you’re already using with Prometheus, enabling you to…
read the full Grafana Loki overview →
About Vector
Quickstart • Docs • Guides • Integrations • Chat • Download • Container Images • Rust Crate Docs What is Vector? Vector is a high performance, end to end (agent & aggregator) observability data pipeline that puts you in control of your observability data. [Collect][docs.sources], [transform][docs.transforms], and [route][docs.sinks] all your logs and metrics to any vendors you want today and any other vendors you may want tomorrow. Vector enables dramatic cost reduction, novel data enrichment, and data security where you need it, not where it is most convenient for your…
read the full Vector overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is Grafana Loki or Vector more popular?
Grafana Loki has 29,111 GitHub stars and Vector has 22,785. Grafana Loki has the larger community by that measure.
Are Grafana Loki and Vector free?
Both are open source. Grafana Loki is licensed under AGPL-3.0 and Vector under MPL-2.0. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between Grafana Loki and Vector?
Grafana Loki is written in Go and Vector in Rust. The practical differences are community size, licence terms, language stack and release cadence — all compared in the table above.
Which should I choose, Grafana Loki or Vector?
Choose Grafana Loki if you want the larger community (29,111 stars) or its AGPL-3.0 licence terms. Choose Vector if its feature set, stack or MPL-2.0 licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.