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.
Graphite
Scalable real-time graphing and time series storage
VS
InfluxDB
Purpose-built time series database for metrics and events
| Feature | Graphite | InfluxDB |
|---|---|---|
| Deploy effort | Under-an-hour setup | Under-an-hour setup |
| Health score | 72 · Good | 98 · Excellent |
| Category | Monitoring & Status | Monitoring & Status |
| License | Apache-2.0 | MIT |
| Language | JavaScript | Rust |
| Setup difficulty | Medium | Medium |
| Min. RAM | 512 MB | 512 MB |
| Deployment | docker, bare-metal, source | docker, kubernetes, binary |
| GitHub stars | ★ 6,119 | ★ 31,754 |
| First released | 2008 | 2013 |
| Replaces | Datadog | Datadog, AWS Timestream |
What are Graphite and InfluxDB?
Graphite
Graphite is a monitoring tool that stores numeric time series data and renders graphs of it on demand. It consists of Carbon for metric ingestion, Whisper for storage, and a Django-based web app for visualization.
- Time series storage with Whisper
- On-demand graph rendering
- Plain-text metric protocol
- Widely supported by collectors
InfluxDB
InfluxDB is an open-source time series database designed for high write and query loads of metrics, events, and analytics data. It powers monitoring dashboards, IoT data collection, and real-time analytics.
- High-throughput time series storage
- SQL and Flux query support
- Built-in retention policies
- Telegraf collector ecosystem
Graphite vs InfluxDB: key differences
Graphite is written in JavaScript, while InfluxDB is built with Rust. Licensing differs — Apache-2.0 for Graphite versus MIT for InfluxDB. Graphite is the more established project (first released 2008), while InfluxDB arrived in 2013. InfluxDB has the considerably larger community, at 31,754 GitHub stars versus 6,119.
Why pick each one
Choose Graphite if…
- Simple metric protocol
- Mature and stable
Watch out for
- Dated architecture
- Scaling requires extra components
Choose InfluxDB if…
- Excellent for IoT and metrics
- Rich tooling and integrations
Watch out for
- Clustering reserved for enterprise
- Query language changes between versions
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.