Pinpoint APM vs Grafana

A side-by-side comparison of two self-hosted monitoring & status options — licensing, setup difficulty, resource needs, and what each one replaces.

Not the right match-up?
FeaturePinpoint APMGrafana
CategoryMonitoring & StatusMonitoring & Status
LicenseApache-2.0AGPL-3.0
LanguageJavaTypeScript
Setup difficultyHardMedium
Min. RAM2,048 MB512 MB
Deploymentdocker, bare-metaldocker, bare-metal, helm
GitHub stars★ 13,855★ 76,153
First released20152014
ReplacesNew Relic, DynatraceDatadog

Why pick each one

Choose Pinpoint APM if…

  • Detailed call-stack tracing
  • Good for large JVM systems
Pinpoint APM details

Choose Grafana if…

  • Beautiful flexible dashboards
  • Broad data source support
  • Strong community
Grafana details

Frequently asked questions

Is Pinpoint APM or Grafana better?

Grafana is the stronger all-round pick: it has both the larger community and the simpler medium setup. Consider Pinpoint APM if its specific feature set fits your needs better.

Are Pinpoint APM and Grafana free and open-source?

Yes. Pinpoint APM is licensed under Apache-2.0 and Grafana under AGPL-3.0. Both can be self-hosted at no software cost.

Can I run Pinpoint APM and Grafana with Docker?

Pinpoint APM: yes. Grafana: yes.

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