Grafana Loki vs Pushgateway

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?
FeatureGrafana LokiPushgateway
CategoryMonitoring & StatusMonitoring & Status
LicenseAGPL-3.0Apache-2.0
LanguageGoGo
Setup difficultyMediumEasy
Min. RAM512 MB32 MB
Deploymentdocker, kubernetes, helmdocker, kubernetes, binary
GitHub stars★ 28,687★ 3,356
First released20182015
ReplacesSplunk, Datadog LogsDatadog

Why pick each one

Choose Grafana Loki if…

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

Choose Pushgateway if…

  • Solves batch job monitoring
  • Simple to run
Pushgateway details

Frequently asked questions

Is Grafana Loki or Pushgateway better?

Neither is universally better. Grafana Loki has the larger community, while Pushgateway is simpler to set up (easy difficulty). Choose based on the comparison table above and your own setup.

Are Grafana Loki and Pushgateway free and open-source?

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

Can I run Grafana Loki and Pushgateway with Docker?

Grafana Loki: yes. Pushgateway: yes.

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