Fluentd vs Kibana
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?
Fluentd
Unified logging layer for collecting and routing data
VS
Kibana
Visualization and exploration for Elasticsearch data
| Feature | Fluentd | Kibana |
|---|---|---|
| Category | Monitoring & Status | Monitoring & Status |
| License | Apache-2.0 | AGPL-3.0 |
| Language | Ruby | TypeScript |
| Setup difficulty | Medium | Medium |
| Min. RAM | 128 MB | 1,024 MB |
| Deployment | docker, kubernetes, binary | docker, kubernetes, binary |
| GitHub stars | ★ 13,576 | ★ 21,230 |
| First released | 2011 | 2013 |
| Replaces | Logstash | Splunk, Datadog |
Why pick each one
Frequently asked questions
Is Fluentd or Kibana better?
Neither is universally better. Kibana has the larger community; both share a medium setup difficulty, so the decision comes down to features and licensing.
Are Fluentd and Kibana free and open-source?
Yes. Fluentd is licensed under Apache-2.0 and Kibana under AGPL-3.0. Both can be self-hosted at no software cost.
Can I run Fluentd and Kibana with Docker?
Fluentd: yes. Kibana: yes.