Grafana OnCall vs Oncall
A side-by-side comparison of two self-hosted monitoring & status options — licensing, setup difficulty, resource needs, and what each one replaces.
| Feature | Grafana OnCall | Oncall |
|---|---|---|
| Deploy effort | Under-an-hour setup | Under-an-hour setup |
| Health score | 15 · At risk | 28 · At risk |
| Status | Archived | Actively maintained |
| Category | Monitoring & Status | Monitoring & Status |
| License | AGPL-3.0 | BSD-2-Clause |
| Language | Python | Python |
| Setup difficulty | Medium | Medium |
| Min. RAM | 512 MB | 256 MB |
| Deployment | docker, kubernetes, helm | docker, bare-metal |
| GitHub stars | ★ 3,886 | ★ 1,258 |
| First released | 2021 | 2017 |
| Replaces | PagerDuty, Opsgenie | PagerDuty |
What are Grafana OnCall and Oncall?
Grafana OnCall
Grafana OnCall is an on-call management tool that handles alert escalation, schedules, and notifications across phone, SMS, Slack, and more. It deduplicates and routes alerts so the right person is paged.
- On-call schedules and rotations
- Escalation chains
- Phone, SMS, and chat alerts
- Alert grouping and routing
Oncall
Oncall is a calendar tool for managing on-call schedules and rotations across teams. Developed at LinkedIn, it integrates with paging systems to ensure the right engineer is reachable at any time.
- Calendar-based rotations
- Team and event management
- Paging system integration
- REST API
Grafana OnCall vs Oncall: key differences
The biggest difference is maintenance: Grafana OnCall's repository is archived and no longer developed, while Oncall is actively maintained. Both projects are written in Python. Licensing differs — AGPL-3.0 for Grafana OnCall versus BSD-2-Clause for Oncall. Oncall is the lighter option, starting around 256 MB of RAM against 512 MB for Grafana OnCall. Oncall is the more established project (first released 2017), while Grafana OnCall arrived in 2021. Grafana OnCall has the considerably larger community, at 3,886 GitHub stars versus 1,258.
Why pick each one
Choose Grafana OnCall if…
- Strong PagerDuty alternative
- Integrates with Grafana
Watch out for
- Several components to deploy
- Telephony needs external provider
Choose Oncall if…
- Simple scheduling model
- Battle-tested at LinkedIn
Watch out for
- Needs Iris for actual paging
- UI is utilitarian
Frequently asked questions
Is Grafana OnCall or Oncall better?
Neither is universally better. Grafana OnCall has the larger community; both share a medium setup difficulty, so the decision comes down to features and licensing.
Are Grafana OnCall and Oncall free and open-source?
Yes. Grafana OnCall is licensed under AGPL-3.0 and Oncall under BSD-2-Clause. Both can be self-hosted at no software cost.
Can I run Grafana OnCall and Oncall with Docker?
Grafana OnCall: yes. Oncall: yes.
Which is lighter on resources, Grafana OnCall or Oncall?
Oncall has the smaller minimum footprint at 256 MB of RAM, compared to about 512 MB for Grafana OnCall. Real-world usage depends on library size, user count, and enabled features.