Grafana vs HyperDX
A side-by-side comparison of two self-hosted monitoring & status options — licensing, setup difficulty, resource needs, and what each one replaces.
Grafana
Open observability dashboards and visualization
VS
HyperDX
Open-source observability for logs, traces, and session replay
| Feature | Grafana | HyperDX |
|---|---|---|
| Deploy effort | ≈5-minute setup | Under-an-hour setup |
| Health score | 100 · Excellent | 93 · Excellent |
| Category | Monitoring & Status | Monitoring & Status |
| License | AGPL-3.0 | MIT |
| Language | TypeScript | TypeScript |
| Setup difficulty | Medium | Medium |
| Min. RAM | 512 MB | 1,024 MB |
| Deployment | docker, bare-metal, helm | docker, kubernetes, helm |
| GitHub stars | ★ 76,876 | ★ 9,912 |
| First released | 2014 | 2023 |
| Replaces | Datadog | Datadog, Sentry |
What are Grafana and HyperDX?
Grafana
Grafana is an open-source analytics and visualization platform that builds dashboards from many data sources. It targets operators and analysts who need rich observability dashboards. It is deployed via Docker, packages, or Helm.
- Dashboards from many data sources
- Alerting and annotations
- Large plugin ecosystem
- Templating and variables
HyperDX
HyperDX is an open-source observability platform that correlates logs, metrics, traces, and session replays in one place. Built on OpenTelemetry and ClickHouse, it helps developers debug production issues quickly.
- Correlated logs, traces, and replays
- OpenTelemetry-native
- ClickHouse storage
- Full-text log search
Grafana vs HyperDX: key differences
Both projects are written in TypeScript. Licensing differs — AGPL-3.0 for Grafana versus MIT for HyperDX. Grafana is the lighter option, starting around 512 MB of RAM against 1,024 MB for HyperDX. Grafana is the more established project (first released 2014), while HyperDX arrived in 2023. Grafana has the considerably larger community, at 76,876 GitHub stars versus 9,912.
Why pick each one
Choose Grafana if…
- Beautiful flexible dashboards
- Broad data source support
- Strong community
Watch out for
- Not a data store itself
- Alerting can be complex
Choose HyperDX if…
- Session replay correlation
- Developer-focused UX
Watch out for
- Newer project
- Requires ClickHouse
Frequently asked questions
Is Grafana or HyperDX better?
Neither is universally better. Grafana has the larger community; both share a medium setup difficulty, so the decision comes down to features and licensing.
Are Grafana and HyperDX free and open-source?
Yes. Grafana is licensed under AGPL-3.0 and HyperDX under MIT. Both can be self-hosted at no software cost.
Can I run Grafana and HyperDX with Docker?
Grafana: yes. HyperDX: yes.
Which is lighter on resources, Grafana or HyperDX?
Grafana has the smaller minimum footprint at 512 MB of RAM, compared to about 1,024 MB for HyperDX. Real-world usage depends on library size, user count, and enabled features.