Graphite vs Grafana Loki

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?
FeatureGraphiteGrafana Loki
CategoryMonitoring & StatusMonitoring & Status
LicenseApache-2.0AGPL-3.0
LanguageJavaScriptGo
Setup difficultyMediumMedium
Min. RAM512 MB512 MB
Deploymentdocker, bare-metal, sourcedocker, kubernetes, helm
GitHub stars★ 6,102★ 28,687
First released20082018
ReplacesDatadogSplunk, Datadog Logs

Why pick each one

Choose Graphite if…

  • Simple metric protocol
  • Mature and stable
Graphite details

Choose Grafana Loki if…

  • Cheap to run compared to full-text indexers
  • Familiar Prometheus-style labels
Grafana Loki details

Frequently asked questions

Is Graphite or Grafana Loki better?

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

Are Graphite and Grafana Loki free and open-source?

Yes. Graphite is licensed under Apache-2.0 and Grafana Loki under AGPL-3.0. Both can be self-hosted at no software cost.

Can I run Graphite and Grafana Loki with Docker?

Graphite: yes. Grafana Loki: yes.

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