Icinga 2 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?
FeatureIcinga 2Grafana Loki
CategoryMonitoring & StatusMonitoring & Status
LicenseGPL-2.0AGPL-3.0
LanguageC++Go
Setup difficultyHardMedium
Min. RAM512 MB512 MB
Deploymentdocker, bare-metal, sourcedocker, kubernetes, helm
GitHub stars★ 2,228★ 28,687
First released20142018
ReplacesSolarWinds, PRTGSplunk, Datadog Logs

Why pick each one

Choose Icinga 2 if…

  • Scales to large environments
  • Active development and community
Icinga 2 details

Choose Grafana Loki if…

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

Frequently asked questions

Is Icinga 2 or Grafana Loki better?

Grafana Loki is the stronger all-round pick: it has both the larger community and the simpler medium setup. Consider Icinga 2 if its specific feature set fits your needs better.

Are Icinga 2 and Grafana Loki free and open-source?

Yes. Icinga 2 is licensed under GPL-2.0 and Grafana Loki under AGPL-3.0. Both can be self-hosted at no software cost.

Can I run Icinga 2 and Grafana Loki with Docker?

Icinga 2: yes. Grafana Loki: yes.

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