Grafana vs Grafana Mimir

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?
FeatureGrafanaGrafana Mimir
CategoryMonitoring & StatusMonitoring & Status
LicenseAGPL-3.0AGPL-3.0
LanguageTypeScriptGo
Setup difficultyMediumHard
Min. RAM512 MB1,024 MB
Deploymentdocker, bare-metal, helmdocker, kubernetes, helm
GitHub stars★ 76,153★ 5,201
First released20142022
ReplacesDatadogDatadog, Chronosphere

Why pick each one

Choose Grafana if…

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

Choose Grafana Mimir if…

  • Proven at billion-series scale
  • Easier to operate than Cortex
Grafana Mimir details

Frequently asked questions

Is Grafana or Grafana Mimir better?

Grafana is the stronger all-round pick: it has both the larger community and the simpler medium setup. Consider Grafana Mimir if its specific feature set fits your needs better.

Are Grafana and Grafana Mimir free and open-source?

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

Can I run Grafana and Grafana Mimir with Docker?

Grafana: yes. Grafana Mimir: yes.

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