Glances vs Grafana Loki

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

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FeatureGlancesGrafana Loki
CategoryMonitoring & StatusMonitoring & Status
LicenseLGPL-3.0AGPL-3.0
LanguagePythonGo
Setup difficultyEasyMedium
Min. RAM128 MB512 MB
Deploymentdocker, bare-metal, binarydocker, kubernetes, helm
GitHub stars★ 33,269★ 28,687
First released20122018
ReplacesDatadogSplunk, Datadog Logs

Why pick each one

Choose Glances if…

  • Very easy to run
  • Lightweight
  • Good single-host overview
Glances details

Choose Grafana Loki if…

  • Cheap to run compared to full-text indexers
  • Familiar Prometheus-style labels
Grafana Loki details

Frequently asked questions

Is Glances or Grafana Loki better?

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

Are Glances and Grafana Loki free and open-source?

Yes. Glances is licensed under LGPL-3.0 and Grafana Loki under AGPL-3.0. Both can be self-hosted at no software cost.

Can I run Glances and Grafana Loki with Docker?

Glances: yes. Grafana Loki: yes.

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