Grafana vs Sampler Dashboard

A side-by-side comparison of two self-hosted apps from related categories — licensing, setup difficulty, resource needs, and what each one replaces.

Not the right match-up?
FeatureGrafanaSampler Dashboard
CategoryMonitoring & StatusDashboards & Startpages
LicenseAGPL-3.0GPL-3.0
LanguageTypeScriptGo
Setup difficultyMediumEasy
Min. RAM512 MB64 MB
Deploymentdocker, bare-metal, helmbare-metal, binary
GitHub stars★ 76,153★ 14,727
First released20142019
ReplacesDatadogGrafana

Why pick each one

Choose Grafana if…

  • Beautiful flexible dashboards
  • Broad data source support
  • Strong community
Grafana details

Choose Sampler Dashboard if…

  • Runs in a terminal
  • No web stack needed
Sampler Dashboard details

Frequently asked questions

Is Grafana or Sampler Dashboard better?

Neither is universally better. Grafana has the larger community, while Sampler Dashboard is simpler to set up (easy difficulty). Choose based on the comparison table above and your own setup.

Are Grafana and Sampler Dashboard free and open-source?

Yes. Grafana is licensed under AGPL-3.0 and Sampler Dashboard under GPL-3.0. Both can be self-hosted at no software cost.

Can I run Grafana and Sampler Dashboard with Docker?

Grafana: yes. Sampler Dashboard: check the project docs for container support.

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