HyperDX vs Kibana
A side-by-side comparison of two self-hosted monitoring & status options — licensing, setup difficulty, resource needs, and what each one replaces.
HyperDX
Open-source observability for logs, traces, and session replay
VS
Kibana
Visualization and exploration for Elasticsearch data
| Feature | HyperDX | Kibana |
|---|---|---|
| Deploy effort | Under-an-hour setup | Under-an-hour setup |
| Health score | 93 · Excellent | 96 · Excellent |
| Category | Monitoring & Status | Monitoring & Status |
| License | MIT | AGPL-3.0 |
| Language | TypeScript | TypeScript |
| Setup difficulty | Medium | Medium |
| Min. RAM | 1,024 MB | 1,024 MB |
| Deployment | docker, kubernetes, helm | docker, kubernetes, binary |
| GitHub stars | ★ 9,912 | ★ 21,299 |
| First released | 2023 | 2013 |
| Replaces | Datadog, Sentry | Splunk, Datadog |
What are HyperDX and Kibana?
HyperDX
HyperDX is an open-source observability platform that correlates logs, metrics, traces, and session replays in one place. Built on OpenTelemetry and ClickHouse, it helps developers debug production issues quickly.
- Correlated logs, traces, and replays
- OpenTelemetry-native
- ClickHouse storage
- Full-text log search
Kibana
Kibana is a visualization and management interface for Elasticsearch, widely used for log analytics and observability. It provides dashboards, search, and alerting over indexed operational data.
- Log and metric dashboards
- Discover search interface
- Alerting and machine learning
- Maps and visualizations
HyperDX vs Kibana: key differences
Both projects are written in TypeScript. Licensing differs — MIT for HyperDX versus AGPL-3.0 for Kibana. Kibana is the more established project (first released 2013), while HyperDX arrived in 2023. Kibana has the considerably larger community, at 21,299 GitHub stars versus 9,912.
Why pick each one
Choose HyperDX if…
- Session replay correlation
- Developer-focused UX
Watch out for
- Newer project
- Requires ClickHouse
Choose Kibana if…
- Rich visualization options
- Mature ecosystem
Watch out for
- Tied to Elasticsearch
- Heavy resource usage
Frequently asked questions
Is HyperDX or Kibana better?
Neither is universally better. Kibana has the larger community; both share a medium setup difficulty, so the decision comes down to features and licensing.
Are HyperDX and Kibana free and open-source?
Yes. HyperDX is licensed under MIT and Kibana under AGPL-3.0. Both can be self-hosted at no software cost.
Can I run HyperDX and Kibana with Docker?
HyperDX: yes. Kibana: yes.