InfluxDB vs Kibana

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?
FeatureInfluxDBKibana
CategoryMonitoring & StatusMonitoring & Status
LicenseMITAGPL-3.0
LanguageRustTypeScript
Setup difficultyMediumMedium
Min. RAM512 MB1,024 MB
Deploymentdocker, kubernetes, binarydocker, kubernetes, binary
GitHub stars★ 31,683★ 21,230
First released20132013
ReplacesDatadog, AWS TimestreamSplunk, Datadog

Why pick each one

Choose InfluxDB if…

  • Excellent for IoT and metrics
  • Rich tooling and integrations
InfluxDB details

Choose Kibana if…

  • Rich visualization options
  • Mature ecosystem
Kibana details

Frequently asked questions

Is InfluxDB or Kibana better?

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

Are InfluxDB and Kibana free and open-source?

Yes. InfluxDB is licensed under MIT and Kibana under AGPL-3.0. Both can be self-hosted at no software cost.

Can I run InfluxDB and Kibana with Docker?

InfluxDB: yes. Kibana: yes.

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