Grafana vs Kibana
| Feature | Grafana | Kibana |
|---|---|---|
| Category | Monitoring | Monitoring |
| Sub-category | Visualization | Visualization |
| Maturity | mature | mature |
| Complexity | intermediate | intermediate |
| Performance tier | medium | medium |
| License | AGPL-3.0 | SSPL |
| License type | copyleft | source-available |
| Pricing | fully free | fully free |
| GitHub stars | 66.0K | 20.0K |
| Contributors | 300 | 500 |
| Commit frequency | weekly | weekly |
| Plugin ecosystem | none | none |
| Docs quality | good | good |
| Backing org | Grafana Labs | Elastic |
| Funding model | open_core | open_core |
| Min RAM | 512 MB | 1 GB |
| Min CPU cores | 1 | 1 |
| Scaling pattern | single_node | single_node |
| Self-hostable | Yes | Yes |
| K8s native | Yes | Yes |
| Offline capable | No | No |
| Vendor lock-in | none | none |
| Languages | Go, TypeScript | TypeScript |
| API type | REST | REST |
| Protocols | HTTP | HTTP |
| Deployment | docker, binary | docker |
| SDK languages | — | — |
| Team size fit | small, medium, enterprise | small, medium, enterprise |
| First release | 2020 | 2020 |
| Latest version | — | — |
When to use Grafana
- ✓ Primary: dashboard-building
- ✓ Primary: data-visualization
- ✓ Primary: alerting
When to use Kibana
- ✓ Primary: log-visualization
- ✓ Primary: elasticsearch-dashboards
- ✓ Primary: data-exploration
Grafana anti-patterns
- ✕ Not a data store itself
- ✕ Plugin quality varies
- ✕ Complex alerting setup
- ✕ AGPL license implications
Kibana anti-patterns
- ✕ SSPL license limits redistribution
- ✕ Tied to Elasticsearch ecosystem
- ✕ Heavy for simple visualizations