software
Grafana vs Splunk 2026: Monitoring Comparison
Grafana is a lightweight, open-source visualization platform optimized for metrics and time-series data with lower total cost of ownership, while Splunk is an enterprise-grade platform designed for log aggregation, security analytics, and machine learning with higher pricing but broader indexing capabilities.
Grafana
Open-source visualization and observability platform supporting 80+ data sources
Development teams, startups, DevOps/SRE engineers, cost-conscious organizations, and teams with moderate monitoring needs
Score63%
VS
Splunk
Enterprise data platform for searching, monitoring, and analyzing machine-generated data.
Large enterprises, security operations teams, organizations with high compliance requirements, and companies needing advanced threat detection and forensics
Score63%
Quick Answer
AI SummaryGrafana is a lightweight, open-source visualization platform optimized for metrics and time-series data with lower total cost of ownership, while Splunk is an enterprise-grade platform designed for log aggregation, security analytics, and machine learning with higher pricing but broader indexing capabilities.
Our Verdict
AI-assistedChoose Grafana if you need cost-effective metrics visualization, prefer self-hosted control, and can implement separate log aggregation—ideal for DevOps, SRE, and startup teams. Choose Splunk if you require enterprise-grade log analytics, advanced security intelligence, machine learning capabilities, and have substantial budget—essential for large enterprises, security operations, and compliance-heavy organizations.
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Grafana
8/10
Splunk
7/10
Choose Grafana if
Best pickDevelopment teams, startups, DevOps/SRE engineers, cost-conscious organizations, and teams with moderate monitoring needs
Choose Splunk if
Large enterprises, security operations teams, organizations with high compliance requirements, and companies needing advanced threat detection and forensics
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Key Differences at a Glance
- Starting Price:✓ Grafana wins($0 (open-source) / $79/month (cloud) vs $5,000+/year minimum)
- Data Indexing Model:✓ Splunk wins(Full-text indexing of all log data vs Time-series metrics, logs via Loki plugin)
- Log Aggregation Strength:✓ Splunk wins(Native, built-in log aggregation vs Requires separate tool (Loki, Promtail))
Key Facts & Figures
110 numeric metrics compared
| Metric | Grafana | Splunk | Ratio |
|---|---|---|---|
| Supported Data Sources(count) | 70+ | — | — |
| Starting Monthly Cost(USD) | Free (open-source) | — | — |
| Time to First Dashboard(minutes) | 60-120 | — | — |
| Pre-built Integrations(count) | 300+ | — | — |
| Community Size(millions of users) | 500K+ users | — | — |
| Base Monthly Cost Per User(USD) | $69 | — | — |
| Customer Retention Rate(percent) | 94% | — | — |
| GitHub Stars (Community Adoption)(stars) | 58,000+ (as of 2026) | 2,500+ (proprietary, less open) | |
| Data Sources Supported(integrations) | 90+ (Prometheus, Elasticsearch, Datadog, etc.) | 150+ (broader enterprise data ecosystem) | |
| Default Data Retention(days) | None (external source dependent) | 30 days included | — |
| Memory Usage (Typical Instance)(MB) | 200-500 | — | — |
| Query Language Learning Curve(weeks) | 2-4 (depends on datasource type) | — | — |
| Time to First Dashboard(hours) | 30-60 (needs datasource setup) | — | — |
| Base Pricing (Annual, 100 hosts)(USD) | $0 (self-hosted) | — | — |
| Initial Deployment Time(minutes) | 14-28 days | 2,880 (4-8 weeks average) | |
| Data Source Integrations(count) | 800+ | — | — |
| Supported Technologies (Languages/Frameworks)(count) | 300+ via integrations | — | — |
| Alert Management Channels(count) | 50+ | — | — |
| Grafana/Dynatrace Community Size(thousands of members) | 500K+ monthly active users | — | — |
| Required IT Staff for 10,000 hosts(FTE) | 3-5 FTE | — | — |
| Memory Footprint (Minimal Setup)(MB) | ~200 MB | — | — |
| Supported Data Sources(count) | 100+ | — | — |
| Community Dashboard Templates(templates) | 2,000+ | — | — |
| Setup Time (Basic Production)(minutes) | 15-30 minutes | — | — |
| Minimum Monthly Cost (Small Org)(USD) | $0 (open-source) or $9 (Grafana Cloud) | — | — |
| Data Source Integrations Available(count) | 450+ pre-built plugins | — | — |
| Supported APM Frameworks(count) | 100+ via plugins (manual integration required) | — | — |
| Setup Time for Basic Monitoring(days) | 2-5 days (infrastructure knowledge required) | — | — |
| Data Retention (Free Tier)(months) | Unlimited (self-hosted) or 15 days (Grafana Cloud free) | — | — |
| User Seats Included (Starter)(seats) | Unlimited on self-hosted; 1 on Grafana Cloud free | — | — |
| Dashboard Creation Time(minutes) | 5-10 minutes | — | — |
| Cloud Hosting Starting Price(USD/month) | $79/month | — | — |
| Self-Hosted Cost(USD/month) | $0 (free open-source) | — | — |
| Starting Monthly Cost Per User(USD) | $0 (open-source) | — | — |
| Native Data Connectors(connectors) | 60+ | — | — |
| Minimum Dashboard Refresh Interval(seconds) | 0.001 seconds (milliseconds) | — | — |
| Visualization Chart Types(count) | 15+ | — | — |
| Enterprise Annual License Cost (Single Server)(USD) | $0 (self-hosted free tier) | — | — |
| Time to First Dashboard Creation(minutes) | 5-10 (intuitive interface) | — | — |
| Base Monthly Cost (Single User Cloud)(USD) | $10 (Grafana Cloud Starter) | $4,500+ (minimum commitment) | |
| Annual Cost (1GB/day Log Ingestion)(USD) | $2,400-$7,200 | $54,000-$108,000 | |
| Log Query Response Time(milliseconds) | 5,000-10,000 (Loki) | <100 | |
| Event Ingestion Rate (Single Indexer)(events/sec) | 1,000-2,000 | 10,000+ | |
| Native Data Source Integrations(count) | 150+ | 400+ | |
| Built-in Machine Learning Algorithms(count) | 3-5 (basic anomaly detection) | 50+ | |
| Minimum RAM Requirement (Self-Hosted)(GB) | <2 | 8+ | |
| GitHub Stars(stars) | 56,000 | — | — |
| Initial Setup Time(minutes) | 15-30 | — | — |
| Enterprise License Cost (Annual)(USD) | $12,000 for Grafana Enterprise | — | — |
| Real-Time Dashboard Latency(milliseconds) | 50-500 | — | — |
| Monthly Cost Per Host(USD) | $0-3 (self-hosted) | — | — |
| Time to Production Deployment(minutes) | 30-240 minutes (varies) | — | — |
| Annual Cost (100 hosts, moderate usage)(USD) | $0-2,500 (self-hosted) | — | — |
| Starting Price (Monthly)(USD) | Free (open-source) | — | — |
| Data Source Connectors(count) | 400+ plugins (Prometheus, InfluxDB, CloudWatch, etc.) | — | — |
| Minimum Dashboard Refresh Rate(seconds) | 5-10 seconds (typical) | — | — |
| User Onboarding Time(days) | 7-14 days (JSON, API, plugin config) | — | — |
| Annual per-User Cost (Creator Tier)(USD) | $120-$3,588/year (Grafana Cloud) | — | — |
| Base License Cost (Annual)(USD) | $0 (open-source) | $5,000 minimum | |
| Typical Enterprise Implementation Cost(USD) | $10,000-$30,000 | $50,000-$200,000 | |
| Average Search Query Time (1GB dataset)(seconds) | 0.5-2 seconds | 1-5 seconds | |
| Built-in Machine Learning Models(count) | 3-5 (via plugins) | 20+ (anomaly detection, forecasting, UEBA) | |
| Typical Deployment Time(weeks) | 2-4 weeks | 8-16 weeks | |
| Data Source Support(integrations) | 80+ | — | — |
| Time to Deploy Dashboard(minutes) | 5-10 minutes with templates | — | — |
| Notification Channels(integrations) | 50+ | — | — |
| Base Monthly Cost (100GB/day)(USD) | $3,500-$5,500 | $3,500-$5,500 | |
| Annual TCO (1TB/day ingestion)(USD) | $450,000-$750,000 | $450,000-$750,000 | |
| Deployment Time(months) | 21-30 days | 21-30 days | |
| Query Performance (5TB dataset)(seconds) | 8-12 seconds | 8-12 seconds | |
| Third-Party Integrations(count) | 2,000+ apps | 2,000+ apps | |
| Gartner SIEM Market Share(percent) | 28% (2024) | 28% (2024) | |
| Machine Learning Models(count) | 50+ algorithms | 50+ algorithms | |
| Mean Time to Detection (MTTD)(minutes) | 15-60 minutes (depends on alert configuration) | 15-60 minutes (depends on alert configuration) | |
| Starting Annual Cost (single user/endpoint)(USD) | $3,000-6,000 | $3,000-6,000 | |
| Pre-built Integrations/Apps(count) | 800+ apps in Splunkbase | 800+ apps in Splunkbase | |
| Agent Size/System Footprint(MB) | Heavy (varies, 500MB+) | Heavy (varies, 500MB+) | |
| Base Annual Cost (Small Deployment)(USD) | $3,000 - $5,000 | $3,000 - $5,000 | |
| Per-Gigabyte Ingestion Cost(USD per GB per day) | $0.80 - $1.50 | $0.80 - $1.50 | |
| Setup Time to Production(minutes) | 4-8 (managed cloud) | 4-8 (managed cloud) | |
| Query Response Time (1B records)(milliseconds) | 100-300ms | 100-300ms | |
| Built-in Compliance Certifications(count) | 6 (HIPAA, SOC2, PCI-DSS, FedRAMP, GDPR, ISO27001) | 6 (HIPAA, SOC2, PCI-DSS, FedRAMP, GDPR, ISO27001) | |
| Machine Learning Use Cases Included(count) | 15+ (threat detection, predictive analytics, correlation, clustering) | 15+ (threat detection, predictive analytics, correlation, clustering) | |
| Maximum Cluster Nodes(nodes) | Unlimited (license-dependent) | Unlimited (license-dependent) | |
| Community Support Response Time(hours) | 1 (24/7 enterprise SLA) | 1 (24/7 enterprise SLA) | |
| Average Cost per GB Ingested(USD) | $1.50 | $1.50 | |
| Typical Deployment Timeline(weeks) | 7 weeks | 7 weeks | |
| Default Data Retention Period(months) | 120 months (10 years) | 120 months (10 years) | |
| Out-of-Box Integrations(count) | 700+ integrations | 700+ integrations | |
| APM Real-Time Metric Resolution(seconds) | 10-30 seconds | 10-30 seconds | |
| Uptime SLA Guarantee(percent) | 99.95% | 99.95% | |
| Learning Curve (Time to Productivity)(weeks) | 4-6 weeks | 4-6 weeks | |
| Monthly Cost (100GB/day ingestion)(USD) | $10,000-25,000 | $10,000-25,000 | |
| Implementation Timeline(weeks) | 14-42 days | 14-42 days | |
| Time-to-First-Alert(minutes) | 15-30 minutes | 15-30 minutes | |
| Default Data Retention (included in pricing)(months) | 12 months | 12 months | |
| SIEM Compliance Modules (pre-built)(count) | 12 (HIPAA, PCI, SOC2, NIST) | 12 (HIPAA, PCI, SOC2, NIST) | |
| Enterprise Customers(millions) | 10,000+ (2024) | 10,000+ (2024) | |
| Base Annual Cost(USD) | $2,400 | $2,400 | |
| Additional Data Ingestion Cost(USD per 10GB/day) | $250-350 | $250-350 | |
| Number of Integrations(count) | 900+ | 900+ | |
| Base Monthly Pricing (1GB/day ingestion)(USD) | $1,500-$2,000 | $1,500-$2,000 | |
| Query Response Time (1GB dataset)(milliseconds) | 2,000-5,000ms | 2,000-5,000ms | |
| Standard Data Retention(days) | 30-365 days | 30-365 days | |
| SIEM Use Cases Supported(count) | 400+ built-in detections | 400+ built-in detections | |
| Pre-built Integrations(count) | 300+ | 300+ | |
| Minimum Monthly Commitment(USD) | $3,600 ($120/day minimum) | $3,600 ($120/day minimum) | |
| Log Ingestion at $10k/Month Spend(GB per day) | ~200 | ~200 | |
| Default Metrics Retention(days) | 30 (upgradeable to unlimited) | 30 (upgradeable to unlimited) | |
| Enterprise Customer Count (2025)(organizations) | 12,000 | 12,000 |
Sourced from publicly available data ·
Key Differences
7 attributes compared head-to-head
Grafana leads
Grafana
Attribute
Splunk
- $0 (open-source) / $79/month (cloud)(winner)Starting Price$5,000+/year minimum
- Time-series metrics, logs via Loki pluginData Indexing ModelFull-text indexing of all log data(winner)
- Requires separate tool (Loki, Promtail)Log Aggregation StrengthNative, built-in log aggregation(winner)
- Self-hosted, Docker, Kubernetes, cloud-native(winner)Deployment FlexibilitySelf-hosted, cloud, hybrid (more complex)
- Moderate (straightforward UI, query language simple)(winner)Learning CurveSteep (SPL language, complex workflows)
- Limited built-in ML, plugin ecosystem existsEnterprise ML/AI CapabilitiesAdvanced: anomaly detection, forecasting, UEBA(winner)
- 2-4 weeks(winner)Average Implementation Time8-16 weeks
- Starting Price
Grafana
$0 (open-source) / $79/month (cloud)(winner)
Splunk
$5,000+/year minimum
- Data Indexing Model
Grafana
Time-series metrics, logs via Loki plugin
Splunk
Full-text indexing of all log data(winner)
- Log Aggregation Strength
Grafana
Requires separate tool (Loki, Promtail)
Splunk
Native, built-in log aggregation(winner)
- Deployment Flexibility
Grafana
Self-hosted, Docker, Kubernetes, cloud-native(winner)
Splunk
Self-hosted, cloud, hybrid (more complex)
- Learning Curve
Grafana
Moderate (straightforward UI, query language simple)(winner)
Splunk
Steep (SPL language, complex workflows)
- Enterprise ML/AI Capabilities
Grafana
Limited built-in ML, plugin ecosystem exists
Splunk
Advanced: anomaly detection, forecasting, UEBA(winner)
- Average Implementation Time
Grafana
2-4 weeks(winner)
Splunk
8-16 weeks
Full Comparison
| Attribute | Grafana | Splunk |
|---|---|---|
| Supported Data Sources(count) | 70+ | — |
| Pre-built Integrations(count) | 300+ | — |
| Data Source Integrations(count) | 800+ | — |
| Supported Data Sources(count) | 100+ | — |
| Native Data Connectors(connectors) | 60+ | — |
Show 1 more attributeData Source Connectors(count) 400+ plugins (Prometheus, InfluxDB, CloudWatch, etc.) — | ||
| Self-Hosting Support | Yes, full support | — |
| Open-Source Self-Hosted Availability(null) | Available (Apache 2.0) | — |
| Setup Time (Basic Production)(minutes) | 15-30 minutes | — |
| Docker Deployment | Single container with optional Prometheus | — |
| Agent Size/System Footprint(MB) | Heavy (varies, 500MB+) | — |
Show 2 more attributesSetup Time to Production(minutes) 4-8 (managed cloud) — Implementation Timeline(weeks) 14-42 days — | ||
| Starting Monthly Cost(USD) | Free (open-source) | — |
| Base Monthly Cost Per User(USD) | $69 | — |
| Free Tier User Limit(users) | Unlimited users | — |
| Cloud Hosting Starting Price(USD/month) | $79/month | — |
| Self-Hosted Cost(USD/month) | $0 (free open-source) | — |
Show 22 more attributesStarting Monthly Cost Per User(USD) $0 (open-source) — Enterprise Annual License Cost (Single Server)(USD) $0 (self-hosted free tier) — Base Monthly Cost (Single User Cloud)(USD) $10 (Grafana Cloud Starter) $4,500+ (minimum commitment) Annual Cost (1GB/day Log Ingestion)(USD) $2,400-$7,200 $54,000-$108,000 Enterprise License Cost (Annual)(USD) $12,000 for Grafana Enterprise — Monthly Cost Per Host(USD) $0-3 (self-hosted) — Annual Cost (100 hosts, moderate usage)(USD) $0-2,500 (self-hosted) — Starting Price (Monthly)(USD) Free (open-source) — Annual per-User Cost (Creator Tier)(USD) $120-$3,588/year (Grafana Cloud) — Base License Cost (Annual)(USD) $0 (open-source) $5,000 minimum Typical Enterprise Implementation Cost(USD) $10,000-$30,000 $50,000-$200,000 Base Monthly Cost (100GB/day)(USD) $3,500-$5,500 — Annual TCO (1TB/day ingestion)(USD) $450,000-$750,000 — Starting Annual Cost (single user/endpoint)(USD) $3,000-6,000 — Base Annual Cost (Small Deployment)(USD) $3,000 - $5,000 — Per-Gigabyte Ingestion Cost(USD per GB per day) $0.80 - $1.50 — Average Cost per GB Ingested(USD) $1.50 — Monthly Cost (100GB/day ingestion)(USD) $10,000-25,000 — Base Annual Cost(USD) $2,400 — Additional Data Ingestion Cost(USD per 10GB/day) $250-350 — Base Monthly Pricing (1GB/day ingestion)(USD) $1,500-$2,000 — Minimum Monthly Commitment(USD) $3,600 ($120/day minimum) — | ||
| Time to First Dashboard(minutes) | 60-120 | — |
| Initial Deployment Time(minutes) | 14-28 days(winner) | 2,880 (4-8 weeks average) |
| Typical Deployment Time(weeks) | 2-4 weeks(winner) | 8-16 weeks |
| Typical Deployment Timeline(weeks) | 7 weeks | — |
| Log Management | Requires Loki plugin | — |
| APM Capabilities | Plugin-based with limited support | — |
| On-Call Scheduling Features(null) | Requires integration (OnCall) | — |
| Data Sources Supported(integrations) | 90+ (Prometheus, Elasticsearch, Datadog, etc.) | 150+ (broader enterprise data ecosystem)(winner) |
| Built-in Alerting Capabilities(null) | Basic (via connected datasources) | — |
Show 18 more attributesAI-Powered Anomaly Detection Accuracy(percent) Not available — Alert Management Channels(count) 50+ — Log Search Capability Basic text filtering — APM Features Limited (requires integration with APM platforms) — Visualization Chart Types(count) 15+ — Native Data Source Integrations(count) 150+ 400+ Built-in Machine Learning Algorithms(count) 3-5 (basic anomaly detection) 50+ SQL Query Support(text) Limited—primarily Prometheus-style queries — Full-Text Log Indexing No (time-series focused) Yes (native) Built-in Machine Learning Models(count) 3-5 (via plugins) 20+ (anomaly detection, forecasting, UEBA) Full-Text Search Optimization Basic text filters — Native APM Integration No (plugin-based) — Out-of-Box Integrations(count) 700+ integrations — Default Data Retention (included in pricing)(months) 12 months — Mobile App Incident Management(availability) Limited (dashboards only) — Standard Data Retention(days) 30-365 days — APM Distributed Tracing(languages supported) Limited (add-on required) — Native APM Capability Requires add-on license ($X additional) — | ||
| Community Size(millions of users) | 500K+ users | — |
| GitHub Stars (Community Adoption)(stars) | 58,000+ (as of 2026)(winner) | 2,500+ (proprietary, less open) |
| Grafana/Dynatrace Community Size(thousands of members) | 500K+ monthly active users | — |
| GitHub Stars(stars) | 56,000 | — |
| Mean Time to Response (MTTR) Improvement(percent) | Not measured | — |
| Alert Fatigue Reduction(percent) | Alert grouping available | — |
| Default Data Retention(days) | None (external source dependent) | 30 days included |
| Memory Usage (Typical Instance)(MB) | 200-500 | — |
| Memory Footprint (Minimal Setup)(MB) | ~200 MB | — |
Show 14 more attributesMinimum Dashboard Refresh Interval(seconds) 0.001 seconds (milliseconds) — Log Query Response Time(milliseconds) 5,000-10,000 (Loki) <100 Event Ingestion Rate (Single Indexer)(events/sec) 1,000-2,000 10,000+ Real-Time Dashboard Latency(milliseconds) 50-500 — Minimum Dashboard Refresh Rate(seconds) 5-10 seconds (typical) — Average Search Query Time (1GB dataset)(seconds) 0.5-2 seconds 1-5 seconds Time to Deploy Dashboard(minutes) 5-10 minutes with templates — Query Performance (5TB dataset)(seconds) 8-12 seconds — Query Response Time (1B records)(milliseconds) 100-300ms — APM Real-Time Metric Resolution(seconds) 10-30 seconds — Time-to-First-Alert(minutes) 15-30 minutes — Time to Incident Creation from Alert(seconds) Not applicable (generates alerts) — Query Response Time (1GB dataset)(milliseconds) 2,000-5,000ms — Log Ingestion at $10k/Month Spend(GB per day) ~200 — | ||
| Customer Retention Rate(percent) | 94% | — |
| Query Language Learning Curve(weeks) | 2-4 (depends on datasource type) | — |
| Setup Time for Basic Monitoring(days) | 2-5 days (infrastructure knowledge required) | — |
| Time to First Dashboard Creation(minutes) | 5-10 (intuitive interface) | — |
| User Onboarding Time(days) | 7-14 days (JSON, API, plugin config) | — |
| Standalone Operation | No—requires external datasource | — |
| Time to First Dashboard(hours) | 30-60 (needs datasource setup) | — |
| Base Pricing (Annual, 100 hosts)(USD) | $0 (self-hosted) | — |
| Supported Technologies (Languages/Frameworks)(count) | 300+ via integrations | — |
| Data Source Support(integrations) | 80+ | — |
| Required IT Staff for 10,000 hosts(FTE) | 3-5 FTE | — |
| Time to Production Deployment(minutes) | 30-240 minutes (varies) | — |
| Community Dashboard Templates(templates) | 2,000+ | — |
| Pre-built Integrations/Apps(count) | 800+ apps in Splunkbase | — |
| Commercial Support Cost(USD/month) | $25-150+ per user | — |
| Open Source License Type | AGPL v3 (user-friendly for most use cases) | — |
| Query Language Complexity | PromQL, SQL, or source-native language | — |
| Dashboard Creation Time(minutes) | 5-10 minutes | — |
| Built-in Alerting Rules(feature) | Visualization only (external routing required) | — |
| Notification Channels(integrations) | 50+ | — |
| Minimum Monthly Cost (Small Org)(USD) | $0 (open-source) or $9 (Grafana Cloud) | — |
| Data Source Integrations Available(count) | 450+ pre-built plugins | — |
| Supported APM Frameworks(count) | 100+ via plugins (manual integration required) | — |
| Deployment Flexibility | Self-hosted, Docker, Kubernetes, managed cloud (Grafana Cloud) | — |
| Minimum RAM Requirement (Self-Hosted)(GB) | <2(winner) | 8+ |
| Deployment Options(types) | Self-hosted, Docker, Kubernetes, Cloud | — |
| AI Anomaly Detection(capability) | Limited; basic alerting rules, ML via separate module | — |
| Enterprise Support SLA(uptime %) | Community support; no guaranteed SLA | — |
| Community Support Response Time(hours) | 1 (24/7 enterprise SLA) | — |
| Data Retention (Free Tier)(months) | Unlimited (self-hosted) or 15 days (Grafana Cloud free) | — |
| Default Data Retention Period(months) | 120 months (10 years) | — |
| User Seats Included (Starter)(seats) | Unlimited on self-hosted; 1 on Grafana Cloud free | — |
| Maximum Dashboard Rows Per Organization(count) | Unlimited | — |
| Maximum Cluster Nodes(nodes) | Unlimited (license-dependent) | — |
| Maximum Data Ingestion Per Day (Enterprise)(GB) | Unlimited (licensing dependent) | — |
| Row-Level Security (RLS) | Supported via RBAC and data source filtering | — |
| Enterprise Security Features(count) | Basic RBAC, no SIEM module | Enterprise Security module, threat detection, compliance dashboards |
| Enterprise Compliance(certifications) | SOC 2, ISO 27001 | — |
| Built-in Compliance Certifications(count) | 6 (HIPAA, SOC2, PCI-DSS, FedRAMP, GDPR, ISO27001) | — |
| SIEM Compliance Modules (pre-built)(count) | 12 (HIPAA, PCI, SOC2, NIST) | — |
Show 1 more attributeSIEM Use Cases Supported(count) 400+ built-in detections — | ||
| Initial Setup Time(minutes) | 15-30 | — |
| Built-in APM | No, requires external tools | — |
| AI/ML Analytics | No native features | — |
| Self-Hosted Deployment | Fully supported | — |
| Advanced Statistical Functions(count) | Basic math and aggregation functions | — |
| Machine Learning Use Cases Included(count) | 15+ (threat detection, predictive analytics, correlation, clustering) | — |
| Machine Learning Capabilities(availability) | Full ML for anomaly detection, forecasting, root cause analysis | — |
| Deployment Time(months) | 21-30 days | — |
| Third-Party Integrations(count) | 2,000+ apps | — |
| Number of Integrations(count) | 900+ | — |
| Pre-built Integrations(count) | 300+ | — |
| Gartner SIEM Market Share(percent) | 28% (2024) | — |
| Enterprise Customer Count (2025)(organizations) | 12,000 | — |
| Machine Learning Models(count) | 50+ algorithms | — |
| Mean Time to Detection (MTTD)(minutes) | 15-60 minutes (depends on alert configuration) | — |
| Malware Detection Rate(%) | Varies by threat rules configured | — |
| Automated Response Actions(native actions) | Via SOAR integration (external) | — |
| Gartner Magic Quadrant Position (2024)(text) | Leader | — |
| Uptime SLA Guarantee(percent) | 99.95% | — |
| Learning Curve (Time to Productivity)(weeks) | 4-6 weeks | — |
| APM Trace Sampling Depth(percent) | Sampling-dependent (configurable) | — |
| Enterprise Customers(millions) | 10,000+ (2024) | — |
| FedRAMP Authorization(boolean) | FedRAMP Authorized | — |
| Default Metrics Retention(days) | 30 (upgradeable to unlimited) | — |
| Default Log Retention (free tier)(days) | Not offered | — |
GrafanaSplunkSupported Data Sources(count)
70+
—
Pre-built Integrations(count)
300+
—
Data Source Integrations(count)
800+
—
Supported Data Sources(count)
100+
—
Native Data Connectors(connectors)
60+
—
Show 1 more attribute
Data Source Connectors(count)
400+ plugins (Prometheus, InfluxDB, CloudWatch, etc.)
—
Self-Hosting Support
Yes, full support
—
Open-Source Self-Hosted Availability(null)
Available (Apache 2.0)
—
Setup Time (Basic Production)(minutes)
15-30 minutes
—
Docker Deployment
Single container with optional Prometheus
—
Agent Size/System Footprint(MB)
Heavy (varies, 500MB+)
—
Show 2 more attributes
Setup Time to Production(minutes)
4-8 (managed cloud)
—
Implementation Timeline(weeks)
14-42 days
—
Starting Monthly Cost(USD)
Free (open-source)
—
Base Monthly Cost Per User(USD)
$69
—
Free Tier User Limit(users)
Unlimited users
—
Cloud Hosting Starting Price(USD/month)
$79/month
—
Self-Hosted Cost(USD/month)
$0 (free open-source)
—
Show 22 more attributes
Starting Monthly Cost Per User(USD)
$0 (open-source)
—
Enterprise Annual License Cost (Single Server)(USD)
$0 (self-hosted free tier)
—
Base Monthly Cost (Single User Cloud)(USD)
$10 (Grafana Cloud Starter)
$4,500+ (minimum commitment)
Annual Cost (1GB/day Log Ingestion)(USD)
$2,400-$7,200
$54,000-$108,000
Enterprise License Cost (Annual)(USD)
$12,000 for Grafana Enterprise
—
Monthly Cost Per Host(USD)
$0-3 (self-hosted)
—
Annual Cost (100 hosts, moderate usage)(USD)
$0-2,500 (self-hosted)
—
Starting Price (Monthly)(USD)
Free (open-source)
—
Annual per-User Cost (Creator Tier)(USD)
$120-$3,588/year (Grafana Cloud)
—
Base License Cost (Annual)(USD)
$0 (open-source)
$5,000 minimum
Typical Enterprise Implementation Cost(USD)
$10,000-$30,000
$50,000-$200,000
Base Monthly Cost (100GB/day)(USD)
$3,500-$5,500
—
Annual TCO (1TB/day ingestion)(USD)
$450,000-$750,000
—
Starting Annual Cost (single user/endpoint)(USD)
$3,000-6,000
—
Base Annual Cost (Small Deployment)(USD)
$3,000 - $5,000
—
Per-Gigabyte Ingestion Cost(USD per GB per day)
$0.80 - $1.50
—
Average Cost per GB Ingested(USD)
$1.50
—
Monthly Cost (100GB/day ingestion)(USD)
$10,000-25,000
—
Base Annual Cost(USD)
$2,400
—
Additional Data Ingestion Cost(USD per 10GB/day)
$250-350
—
Base Monthly Pricing (1GB/day ingestion)(USD)
$1,500-$2,000
—
Minimum Monthly Commitment(USD)
$3,600 ($120/day minimum)
—
Time to First Dashboard(minutes)
60-120
—
Initial Deployment Time(minutes)
14-28 days
2,880 (4-8 weeks average)
Typical Deployment Time(weeks)
2-4 weeks
8-16 weeks
Typical Deployment Timeline(weeks)
7 weeks
—
Log Management
Requires Loki plugin
—
APM Capabilities
Plugin-based with limited support
—
On-Call Scheduling Features(null)
Requires integration (OnCall)
—
Data Sources Supported(integrations)
90+ (Prometheus, Elasticsearch, Datadog, etc.)
150+ (broader enterprise data ecosystem)
Built-in Alerting Capabilities(null)
Basic (via connected datasources)
—
Show 18 more attributes
AI-Powered Anomaly Detection Accuracy(percent)
Not available
—
Alert Management Channels(count)
50+
—
Log Search Capability
Basic text filtering
—
APM Features
Limited (requires integration with APM platforms)
—
Visualization Chart Types(count)
15+
—
Native Data Source Integrations(count)
150+
400+
Built-in Machine Learning Algorithms(count)
3-5 (basic anomaly detection)
50+
SQL Query Support(text)
Limited—primarily Prometheus-style queries
—
Full-Text Log Indexing
No (time-series focused)
Yes (native)
Built-in Machine Learning Models(count)
3-5 (via plugins)
20+ (anomaly detection, forecasting, UEBA)
Full-Text Search Optimization
Basic text filters
—
Native APM Integration
No (plugin-based)
—
Out-of-Box Integrations(count)
700+ integrations
—
Default Data Retention (included in pricing)(months)
12 months
—
Mobile App Incident Management(availability)
Limited (dashboards only)
—
Standard Data Retention(days)
30-365 days
—
APM Distributed Tracing(languages supported)
Limited (add-on required)
—
Native APM Capability
Requires add-on license ($X additional)
—
Community Size(millions of users)
500K+ users
—
GitHub Stars (Community Adoption)(stars)
58,000+ (as of 2026)
2,500+ (proprietary, less open)
Grafana/Dynatrace Community Size(thousands of members)
500K+ monthly active users
—
GitHub Stars(stars)
56,000
—
Mean Time to Response (MTTR) Improvement(percent)
Not measured
—
Alert Fatigue Reduction(percent)
Alert grouping available
—
Default Data Retention(days)
None (external source dependent)
30 days included
Memory Usage (Typical Instance)(MB)
200-500
—
Memory Footprint (Minimal Setup)(MB)
~200 MB
—
Show 14 more attributes
Minimum Dashboard Refresh Interval(seconds)
0.001 seconds (milliseconds)
—
Log Query Response Time(milliseconds)
5,000-10,000 (Loki)
<100
Event Ingestion Rate (Single Indexer)(events/sec)
1,000-2,000
10,000+
Real-Time Dashboard Latency(milliseconds)
50-500
—
Minimum Dashboard Refresh Rate(seconds)
5-10 seconds (typical)
—
Average Search Query Time (1GB dataset)(seconds)
0.5-2 seconds
1-5 seconds
Time to Deploy Dashboard(minutes)
5-10 minutes with templates
—
Query Performance (5TB dataset)(seconds)
8-12 seconds
—
Query Response Time (1B records)(milliseconds)
100-300ms
—
APM Real-Time Metric Resolution(seconds)
10-30 seconds
—
Time-to-First-Alert(minutes)
15-30 minutes
—
Time to Incident Creation from Alert(seconds)
Not applicable (generates alerts)
—
Query Response Time (1GB dataset)(milliseconds)
2,000-5,000ms
—
Log Ingestion at $10k/Month Spend(GB per day)
~200
—
Customer Retention Rate(percent)
94%
—
Query Language Learning Curve(weeks)
2-4 (depends on datasource type)
—
Setup Time for Basic Monitoring(days)
2-5 days (infrastructure knowledge required)
—
Time to First Dashboard Creation(minutes)
5-10 (intuitive interface)
—
User Onboarding Time(days)
7-14 days (JSON, API, plugin config)
—
Standalone Operation
No—requires external datasource
—
Time to First Dashboard(hours)
30-60 (needs datasource setup)
—
Base Pricing (Annual, 100 hosts)(USD)
$0 (self-hosted)
—
Supported Technologies (Languages/Frameworks)(count)
300+ via integrations
—
Data Source Support(integrations)
80+
—
Required IT Staff for 10,000 hosts(FTE)
3-5 FTE
—
Time to Production Deployment(minutes)
30-240 minutes (varies)
—
Community Dashboard Templates(templates)
2,000+
—
Pre-built Integrations/Apps(count)
800+ apps in Splunkbase
—
Commercial Support Cost(USD/month)
$25-150+ per user
—
Open Source License Type
AGPL v3 (user-friendly for most use cases)
—
Query Language Complexity
PromQL, SQL, or source-native language
—
Dashboard Creation Time(minutes)
5-10 minutes
—
Built-in Alerting Rules(feature)
Visualization only (external routing required)
—
Notification Channels(integrations)
50+
—
Minimum Monthly Cost (Small Org)(USD)
$0 (open-source) or $9 (Grafana Cloud)
—
Data Source Integrations Available(count)
450+ pre-built plugins
—
Supported APM Frameworks(count)
100+ via plugins (manual integration required)
—
Deployment Flexibility
Self-hosted, Docker, Kubernetes, managed cloud (Grafana Cloud)
—
Minimum RAM Requirement (Self-Hosted)(GB)
<2
8+
Deployment Options(types)
Self-hosted, Docker, Kubernetes, Cloud
—
AI Anomaly Detection(capability)
Limited; basic alerting rules, ML via separate module
—
Enterprise Support SLA(uptime %)
Community support; no guaranteed SLA
—
Community Support Response Time(hours)
1 (24/7 enterprise SLA)
—
Data Retention (Free Tier)(months)
Unlimited (self-hosted) or 15 days (Grafana Cloud free)
—
Default Data Retention Period(months)
120 months (10 years)
—
User Seats Included (Starter)(seats)
Unlimited on self-hosted; 1 on Grafana Cloud free
—
Maximum Dashboard Rows Per Organization(count)
Unlimited
—
Maximum Cluster Nodes(nodes)
Unlimited (license-dependent)
—
Maximum Data Ingestion Per Day (Enterprise)(GB)
Unlimited (licensing dependent)
—
Row-Level Security (RLS)
Supported via RBAC and data source filtering
—
Enterprise Security Features(count)
Basic RBAC, no SIEM module
Enterprise Security module, threat detection, compliance dashboards
Enterprise Compliance(certifications)
SOC 2, ISO 27001
—
Built-in Compliance Certifications(count)
6 (HIPAA, SOC2, PCI-DSS, FedRAMP, GDPR, ISO27001)
—
SIEM Compliance Modules (pre-built)(count)
12 (HIPAA, PCI, SOC2, NIST)
—
Show 1 more attribute
SIEM Use Cases Supported(count)
400+ built-in detections
—
Initial Setup Time(minutes)
15-30
—
Built-in APM
No, requires external tools
—
AI/ML Analytics
No native features
—
Self-Hosted Deployment
Fully supported
—
Advanced Statistical Functions(count)
Basic math and aggregation functions
—
Machine Learning Use Cases Included(count)
15+ (threat detection, predictive analytics, correlation, clustering)
—
Machine Learning Capabilities(availability)
Full ML for anomaly detection, forecasting, root cause analysis
—
Deployment Time(months)
21-30 days
—
Third-Party Integrations(count)
2,000+ apps
—
Number of Integrations(count)
900+
—
Pre-built Integrations(count)
300+
—
Gartner SIEM Market Share(percent)
28% (2024)
—
Enterprise Customer Count (2025)(organizations)
12,000
—
Machine Learning Models(count)
50+ algorithms
—
Mean Time to Detection (MTTD)(minutes)
15-60 minutes (depends on alert configuration)
—
Malware Detection Rate(%)
Varies by threat rules configured
—
Automated Response Actions(native actions)
Via SOAR integration (external)
—
Gartner Magic Quadrant Position (2024)(text)
Leader
—
Uptime SLA Guarantee(percent)
99.95%
—
Learning Curve (Time to Productivity)(weeks)
4-6 weeks
—
APM Trace Sampling Depth(percent)
Sampling-dependent (configurable)
—
Enterprise Customers(millions)
10,000+ (2024)
—
FedRAMP Authorization(boolean)
FedRAMP Authorized
—
Default Metrics Retention(days)
30 (upgradeable to unlimited)
—
Default Log Retention (free tier)(days)
Not offered
—
Pros & Cons
10 pros·6 cons across both
Grafana
+5-3
Pros
- Free open-source version with core features
- Lightweight deployment (Docker, Kubernetes, single binary)
- 90+ pre-built integrations and data sources
- Intuitive dashboard builder with drag-and-drop interface
- Active open-source community with 58,000+ GitHub stars
Cons
- Log aggregation requires additional tools (Loki, Promtail)
- Limited built-in machine learning and predictive analytics
- Enterprise features require paid Cloud or Enterprise licenses
Splunk
+5-3
Pros
- Full-text indexing enables rapid searches across all log data
- Advanced ML capabilities: anomaly detection, forecasting, User Behavior Analytics
- Native log aggregation, parsing, and correlation
- Comprehensive security analytics and compliance reporting (SOAR, SIEM)
- 24/7 enterprise support and professional services
Cons
- High licensing costs ($5,000-$50,000+/year depending on data volume)
- Steep learning curve with proprietary SPL query language
- Longer implementation and onboarding time (8-16 weeks typical)
Frequently Asked Questions
5 questions
Splunk has superior log aggregation with native full-text indexing across all data. Grafana requires separate tools like Loki for log storage. If logs are your primary use case, Splunk is the better choice. For metrics-focused monitoring, Grafana excels.
Resources & Learn More
Curated sources to dive deeper
Where to Buy
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