Grafana k6 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.

Not the right match-up?
FeatureGrafana k6Grafana Loki
CategoryMonitoring & StatusMonitoring & Status
LicenseAGPL-3.0AGPL-3.0
LanguageGoGo
Setup difficultyMediumMedium
Min. RAM256 MB512 MB
Deploymentdocker, binary, bare-metaldocker, kubernetes, helm
GitHub stars★ 31,211★ 28,687
First released20172018
ReplacesLoadRunner, BlazeMeterSplunk, Datadog Logs

Why pick each one

Choose Grafana k6 if…

  • Developer-friendly scripting
  • Great CI integration
Grafana k6 details

Choose Grafana Loki if…

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

Frequently asked questions

Is Grafana k6 or Grafana Loki better?

Neither is universally better. Grafana k6 has the larger community; both share a medium setup difficulty, so the decision comes down to features and licensing.

Are Grafana k6 and Grafana Loki free and open-source?

Yes. Grafana k6 is licensed under AGPL-3.0 and Grafana Loki under AGPL-3.0. Both can be self-hosted at no software cost.

Can I run Grafana k6 and Grafana Loki with Docker?

Grafana k6: yes. Grafana Loki: yes.

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