Grafana Loki vs Superset

A side-by-side comparison of two self-hosted apps from related categories — licensing, setup difficulty, resource needs, and what each one replaces.

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FeatureGrafana LokiSuperset
CategoryMonitoring & StatusWeb Analytics
LicenseAGPL-3.0Apache-2.0
LanguageGoPython
Setup difficultyMediumMedium
Min. RAM512 MB512 MB
Deploymentdocker, kubernetes, helmbare-metal
GitHub stars★ 28,687★ 74,178
First released20182026
ReplacesSplunk, Datadog Logs

Why pick each one

Choose Grafana Loki if…

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

Choose Superset if…

  • Released under the Apache-2.0 license
  • Mature project with 74.2k GitHub stars
  • Written in Python
  • Lightweight — runs in 512 MB RAM
Superset details

Frequently asked questions

Is Grafana Loki or Superset better?

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

Are Grafana Loki and Superset free and open-source?

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

Can I run Grafana Loki and Superset with Docker?

Grafana Loki: yes. Superset: check the project docs for container support.

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