Graphite vs Uptrace
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
Uptrace
OpenTelemetry-based tracing, metrics, and logs tool
| Feature | Graphite | Uptrace |
|---|---|---|
| Deploy effort | Under-an-hour setup | Under-an-hour setup |
| Health score | 72 · Good | 88 · Excellent |
| Category | Monitoring & Status | Monitoring & Status |
| License | Apache-2.0 | BSL-1.1 |
| Language | JavaScript | Go |
| Setup difficulty | Medium | Medium |
| Min. RAM | 512 MB | 512 MB |
| Deployment | docker, bare-metal, source | docker, kubernetes, binary |
| GitHub stars | ★ 6,119 | ★ 4,290 |
| First released | 2008 | 2021 |
| Replaces | Datadog | Datadog, New Relic |
What are Graphite and Uptrace?
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
Uptrace
Uptrace is an open-source observability tool that uses OpenTelemetry to collect distributed traces, metrics, and logs. It stores data in ClickHouse and provides a clean UI for analyzing application performance.
- Distributed tracing
- Metrics and logs support
- ClickHouse storage
- OpenTelemetry-native
Graphite vs Uptrace: key differences
Graphite is written in JavaScript, while Uptrace is built with Go. Licensing differs — Apache-2.0 for Graphite versus BSL-1.1 for Uptrace. Graphite is the more established project (first released 2008), while Uptrace arrived in 2021.
Why pick each one
Choose Graphite if…
- Simple metric protocol
- Mature and stable
Watch out for
- Dated architecture
- Scaling requires extra components
Choose Uptrace if…
- Efficient ClickHouse backend
- Easy to deploy
Watch out for
- BSL license restrictions
- Smaller community
Frequently asked questions
Is Graphite or Uptrace better?
Neither is universally better. Graphite has the larger community; both share a medium setup difficulty, so the decision comes down to features and licensing.
Are Graphite and Uptrace free and open-source?
Yes. Graphite is licensed under Apache-2.0 and Uptrace under BSL-1.1. Both can be self-hosted at no software cost.
Can I run Graphite and Uptrace with Docker?
Graphite: yes. Uptrace: yes.