Druid vs Grafana

A side-by-side comparison of two self-hosted apps from related categories — licensing, setup difficulty, resource needs, and what each one replaces.

Not the right match-up?
FeatureDruidGrafana
CategoryWeb AnalyticsMonitoring & Status
LicenseApache-2.0AGPL-3.0
LanguageJavaTypeScript
Setup difficultyMediumMedium
Min. RAM512 MB512 MB
Deploymentdockerdocker, bare-metal, helm
GitHub stars★ 14,042★ 76,153
First released20262014
ReplacesDatadog

Why pick each one

Choose Druid if…

  • Released under the Apache-2.0 license
  • First-class Docker support for quick deployment
  • Mature project with 14k GitHub stars
  • Written in Java
Druid details

Choose Grafana if…

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

Frequently asked questions

Is Druid or Grafana better?

Neither is universally better. Grafana has the larger community; both share a medium setup difficulty, so the decision comes down to features and licensing.

Are Druid and Grafana free and open-source?

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

Can I run Druid and Grafana with Docker?

Druid: yes. Grafana: yes.

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