head to head · open source
Grafana vs witr
Grafana has 77,638 GitHub stars, 14,905 forks, 3,326 open issues and last shipped yesterday. witr has 22,906 stars, 808 forks, 17 open issues and last shipped 11 days ago. Grafana leads on adoption by 239% (77,638 vs 22,906 stars). Grafana is written in TypeScript under AGPL-3.0; witr is written in Go under Apache-2.0. Grafana has attracted 19% as many forks as stars, witr 4%. Grafana was the more recently maintained of the two, and both are self-hostable with no licence fee. The two share 2 topic tags (go, 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
| Grafana | witr | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 78K | ★ 23K |
| License | AGPL-3.0 | Apache-2.0 |
| Written in | TypeScript | Go |
| Last push | 2026-11-02 | 2026-10-23 |
| Forks | ⑂ 15K | ⑂ 808 |
| Self-hosting | Yes | Yes |
| Data ownership | Your server | Your server |
pick Grafana if
- You weight community size — 78K 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 witr if
- You want the witr 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 witr fits your workflow better
About Grafana
The open source platform for monitoring and observability Grafana allows you to query, visualize, alert on and understand your metrics no matter where they are stored. Create, explore, and share dashboards with your team and foster a data driven culture: Visualizations: Fast and flexible client side graphs with a multitude of options. Panel plugins offer many different ways to visualize metrics and logs. Dynamic Dashboards: Create dynamic & reusable dashboards with template variables that appear as dropdowns at the top of the dashboard. Explore Metrics: Explore your data through ad hoc queries and dynamic…
read the full Grafana overview →
About witr
witr Why is this running? Trace any process, port, container, or file back to the exact chain that started it — one command, machine readable JSON, or an interactive TUI. 🎮 Try witr in your browser → Investigate a simulated Linux box — a guided tutorial and free play sandbox, no install required. Purpose • Installation • TUI • Flags • Core Concept • Examples Output Behavior • Platforms • Success Criteria • Sponsors 1. Purpose witr exists to answer a single question: Why is this running? When something is running on a system, whether it is a process, a service, or something bound to a port, there is always a…
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Frequently asked questions
Is Grafana or witr more popular?
Grafana has 77,638 GitHub stars and witr has 22,906. Grafana has the larger community by that measure.
Are Grafana and witr free?
Both are open source. Grafana is licensed under AGPL-3.0 and witr under Apache-2.0. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between Grafana and witr?
Grafana is written in TypeScript and witr 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, Grafana or witr?
Choose Grafana if you want the larger community (77,638 stars) or its AGPL-3.0 licence terms. Choose witr if its feature set, stack or Apache-2.0 licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.