Grafana vs Phoenix Panel

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?
FeatureGrafanaPhoenix Panel
CategoryMonitoring & StatusMonitoring & Status
LicenseAGPL-3.0MIT
LanguageTypeScriptPHP
Setup difficultyMediumEasy
Min. RAM512 MB128 MB
Deploymentdocker, bare-metal, helmdocker, bare-metal
GitHub stars★ 76,153★ 1
First released20142022
ReplacesDatadogStatusPage, Better Uptime

Why pick each one

Choose Grafana if…

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

Choose Phoenix Panel if…

  • Released under the MIT license
  • Easy to set up — beginner-friendly
  • First-class Docker support for quick deployment
  • Written in PHP
Phoenix Panel details

Frequently asked questions

Is Grafana or Phoenix Panel better?

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

Are Grafana and Phoenix Panel free and open-source?

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

Can I run Grafana and Phoenix Panel with Docker?

Grafana: yes. Phoenix Panel: yes.

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