Graphite vs InfluxDB

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?
FeatureGraphiteInfluxDB
CategoryMonitoring & StatusMonitoring & Status
LicenseApache-2.0MIT
LanguageJavaScriptRust
Setup difficultyMediumMedium
Min. RAM512 MB512 MB
Deploymentdocker, bare-metal, sourcedocker, kubernetes, binary
GitHub stars★ 6,102★ 31,683
First released20082013
ReplacesDatadogDatadog, AWS Timestream

Why pick each one

Choose Graphite if…

  • Simple metric protocol
  • Mature and stable
Graphite details

Choose InfluxDB if…

  • Excellent for IoT and metrics
  • Rich tooling and integrations
InfluxDB details

Frequently asked questions

Is Graphite or InfluxDB better?

Neither is universally better. InfluxDB has the larger community; both share a medium setup difficulty, so the decision comes down to features and licensing.

Are Graphite and InfluxDB free and open-source?

Yes. Graphite is licensed under Apache-2.0 and InfluxDB under MIT. Both can be self-hosted at no software cost.

Can I run Graphite and InfluxDB with Docker?

Graphite: yes. InfluxDB: yes.

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