Grafana vs OpenNMS Horizon

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?
FeatureGrafanaOpenNMS Horizon
CategoryMonitoring & StatusMonitoring & Status
LicenseAGPL-3.0AGPL-3.0
LanguageTypeScriptJava
Setup difficultyMediumHard
Min. RAM512 MB4,096 MB
Deploymentdocker, bare-metal, helmdocker, bare-metal
GitHub stars★ 76,153★ 1,168
First released20142000
ReplacesDatadogSolarWinds, PRTG

Why pick each one

Choose Grafana if…

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

Choose OpenNMS Horizon if…

  • Released under the AGPL-3.0 license
  • First-class Docker support for quick deployment
  • Active community (1.2k GitHub stars)
  • Written in Java
OpenNMS Horizon details

Frequently asked questions

Is Grafana or OpenNMS Horizon better?

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

Are Grafana and OpenNMS Horizon free and open-source?

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

Can I run Grafana and OpenNMS Horizon with Docker?

Grafana: yes. OpenNMS Horizon: yes.

Related comparisons