Grafana Beyla vs Uptrace
A side-by-side comparison of two self-hosted monitoring & status options — licensing, setup difficulty, resource needs, and what each one replaces.
| Feature | Grafana Beyla | Uptrace |
|---|---|---|
| Deploy effort | Under-an-hour setup | Under-an-hour setup |
| Health score | 86 · Excellent | 88 · Excellent |
| Category | Monitoring & Status | Monitoring & Status |
| License | Apache-2.0 | BSL-1.1 |
| Language | Go | Go |
| Setup difficulty | Medium | Medium |
| Min. RAM | 128 MB | 512 MB |
| Deployment | docker, kubernetes, binary | docker, kubernetes, binary |
| GitHub stars | ★ 2,135 | ★ 4,290 |
| First released | 2023 | 2021 |
| Replaces | Datadog APM, New Relic | Datadog, New Relic |
What are Grafana Beyla and Uptrace?
Grafana Beyla
Beyla is an eBPF-based tool that automatically instruments applications to produce metrics and traces without any code changes. It exports data in Prometheus and OpenTelemetry formats for existing observability stacks.
- eBPF auto-instrumentation
- No code changes needed
- Prometheus metrics export
- OpenTelemetry traces
Uptrace
Uptrace is an open-source observability tool that uses OpenTelemetry to collect distributed traces, metrics, and logs. It stores data in ClickHouse and provides a clean UI for analyzing application performance.
- Distributed tracing
- Metrics and logs support
- ClickHouse storage
- OpenTelemetry-native
Grafana Beyla vs Uptrace: key differences
Both projects are written in Go. Licensing differs — Apache-2.0 for Grafana Beyla versus BSL-1.1 for Uptrace. Grafana Beyla is the lighter option, starting around 128 MB of RAM against 512 MB for Uptrace. Uptrace is the more established project (first released 2021), while Grafana Beyla arrived in 2023. Uptrace has the considerably larger community, at 4,290 GitHub stars versus 2,135.
Why pick each one
Choose Grafana Beyla if…
- Instrument without code
- Low overhead
Watch out for
- Requires modern kernel
- Limited language depth
Choose Uptrace if…
- Efficient ClickHouse backend
- Easy to deploy
Watch out for
- BSL license restrictions
- Smaller community
Frequently asked questions
Is Grafana Beyla or Uptrace better?
Neither is universally better. Uptrace has the larger community; both share a medium setup difficulty, so the decision comes down to features and licensing.
Are Grafana Beyla and Uptrace free and open-source?
Yes. Grafana Beyla is licensed under Apache-2.0 and Uptrace under BSL-1.1. Both can be self-hosted at no software cost.
Can I run Grafana Beyla and Uptrace with Docker?
Grafana Beyla: yes. Uptrace: yes.
Which is lighter on resources, Grafana Beyla or Uptrace?
Grafana Beyla has the smaller minimum footprint at 128 MB of RAM, compared to about 512 MB for Uptrace. Real-world usage depends on library size, user count, and enabled features.