Graphite vs VictoriaMetrics
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
VictoriaMetrics
Fast, cost-effective time series database and monitoring solution
| Feature | Graphite | VictoriaMetrics |
|---|---|---|
| Deploy effort | Under-an-hour setup | Under-an-hour setup |
| Health score | 72 · Good | 95 · Excellent |
| Category | Monitoring & Status | Monitoring & Status |
| License | Apache-2.0 | Apache-2.0 |
| Language | JavaScript | Go |
| Setup difficulty | Medium | Medium |
| Min. RAM | 512 MB | 256 MB |
| Deployment | docker, bare-metal, source | docker, kubernetes, helm |
| GitHub stars | ★ 6,119 | ★ 17,760 |
| First released | 2008 | 2018 |
| Replaces | Datadog | Datadog, Grafana Cloud |
What are Graphite and VictoriaMetrics?
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
VictoriaMetrics
VictoriaMetrics is a fast, cost-effective, and scalable monitoring solution and time series database. It is a drop-in replacement for Prometheus storage with lower resource usage and a high-performance query engine.
- Low memory footprint
- MetricsQL query language
- Single-binary or cluster mode
- Prometheus-compatible
Graphite vs VictoriaMetrics: key differences
Graphite is written in JavaScript, while VictoriaMetrics is built with Go. VictoriaMetrics is the lighter option, starting around 256 MB of RAM against 512 MB for Graphite. Graphite is the more established project (first released 2008), while VictoriaMetrics arrived in 2018. VictoriaMetrics has the considerably larger community, at 17,760 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 VictoriaMetrics if…
- Excellent compression and speed
- Easy single-binary deployment
Watch out for
- MetricsQL differs slightly from PromQL
- Smaller ecosystem than Prometheus
Frequently asked questions
Is Graphite or VictoriaMetrics better?
Neither is universally better. VictoriaMetrics has the larger community; both share a medium setup difficulty, so the decision comes down to features and licensing.
Are Graphite and VictoriaMetrics free and open-source?
Yes. Graphite is licensed under Apache-2.0 and VictoriaMetrics under Apache-2.0. Both can be self-hosted at no software cost.
Can I run Graphite and VictoriaMetrics with Docker?
Graphite: yes. VictoriaMetrics: yes.
Which is lighter on resources, Graphite or VictoriaMetrics?
VictoriaMetrics has the smaller minimum footprint at 256 MB of RAM, compared to about 512 MB for Graphite. Real-world usage depends on library size, user count, and enabled features.