Grafana Mimir vs Uptrace
A side-by-side comparison of two self-hosted monitoring & status options — licensing, setup difficulty, resource needs, and what each one replaces.
Grafana Mimir
Scalable long-term storage for Prometheus metrics
VS
Uptrace
OpenTelemetry-based tracing, metrics, and logs tool
| Feature | Grafana Mimir | Uptrace |
|---|---|---|
| Deploy effort | Under-an-hour setup | Under-an-hour setup |
| Health score | 90 · Excellent | 88 · Excellent |
| Category | Monitoring & Status | Monitoring & Status |
| License | AGPL-3.0 | BSL-1.1 |
| Language | Go | Go |
| Setup difficulty | Hard | Medium |
| Min. RAM | 1,024 MB | 512 MB |
| Deployment | docker, kubernetes, helm | docker, kubernetes, binary |
| GitHub stars | ★ 5,238 | ★ 4,290 |
| First released | 2022 | 2021 |
| Replaces | Datadog, Chronosphere | Datadog, New Relic |
What are Grafana Mimir and Uptrace?
Grafana Mimir
Grafana Mimir is an open-source, horizontally scalable, highly available, multi-tenant time series database for Prometheus and OpenTelemetry metrics. It is designed to store and query hundreds of millions of active series.
- Massive cardinality support
- Multi-tenant by design
- Fast query engine
- Object storage backend
Uptrace
Uptrace is an open-source observability tool that uses OpenTelemetry to collect distributed traces, metrics, and logs. It stores data in ClickHouse and provides a clean UI for analyzing application performance.
- Distributed tracing
- Metrics and logs support
- ClickHouse storage
- OpenTelemetry-native
Grafana Mimir vs Uptrace: key differences
Both projects are written in Go. Licensing differs — AGPL-3.0 for Grafana Mimir versus BSL-1.1 for Uptrace. Uptrace is the lighter option, starting around 512 MB of RAM against 1,024 MB for Grafana Mimir.
Why pick each one
Choose Grafana Mimir if…
- Proven at billion-series scale
- Easier to operate than Cortex
Watch out for
- Resource intensive
- Complex for small homelabs
Choose Uptrace if…
- Efficient ClickHouse backend
- Easy to deploy
Watch out for
- BSL license restrictions
- Smaller community
Frequently asked questions
Is Grafana Mimir or Uptrace better?
Neither is universally better. Grafana Mimir has the larger community, while Uptrace is simpler to set up (medium difficulty). Choose based on the comparison table above and your own setup.
Are Grafana Mimir and Uptrace free and open-source?
Yes. Grafana Mimir is licensed under AGPL-3.0 and Uptrace under BSL-1.1. Both can be self-hosted at no software cost.
Can I run Grafana Mimir and Uptrace with Docker?
Grafana Mimir: yes. Uptrace: yes.
Which is lighter on resources, Grafana Mimir or Uptrace?
Uptrace has the smaller minimum footprint at 512 MB of RAM, compared to about 1,024 MB for Grafana Mimir. Real-world usage depends on library size, user count, and enabled features.