Grafana Loki vs Telegraf

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 LokiTelegraf
CategoryMonitoring & StatusMonitoring & Status
LicenseAGPL-3.0MIT
LanguageGoGo
Setup difficultyMediumEasy
Min. RAM512 MB64 MB
Deploymentdocker, kubernetes, helmdocker, kubernetes, binary
GitHub stars★ 28,687★ 17,736
First released20182015
ReplacesSplunk, Datadog LogsDatadog Agent

Why pick each one

Choose Grafana Loki if…

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

Choose Telegraf if…

  • Huge plugin catalog
  • Trivial to deploy
Telegraf details

Frequently asked questions

Is Grafana Loki or Telegraf better?

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

Are Grafana Loki and Telegraf free and open-source?

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

Can I run Grafana Loki and Telegraf with Docker?

Grafana Loki: yes. Telegraf: yes.

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