# Grafana Loki vs Splunk

**Leader by vioscaleAI score:** Grafana Loki

| Attribute | Grafana Loki | Splunk |
|---|---|---|
| **vioscaleAI score** | 68 (75% (high)) | 51.3 (41% (low)) |
| activity.commits_last_30d | 100 | - |
| adoption.dependent_repos | 334 | - |
| adoption.github_stars | 29,009 | - |
| content.faq | `[{"answer":"Loki is a distributed log aggregation platform designed for simplicity and cost efficiency. It stores logs with only label metadata indexed rather than full-text content, making it straightforward to operate and integrate with Prometheus and Grafana for unified observability. It is indexed under Log Management Software.","source":"https://grafana.com/oss/loki/","question":"What is Grafana Loki?","confidence":0.6},{"answer":"Grafana Loki is open source, so it can be self-hosted and used at no licence cost. It is released under the AGPL-3.0 licence. A commercial or hosted edition starts at $0.05. Prices are published openly on the vendor's own pricing page. Pricing changes often, so verify at source before relying on it.","source":"https://grafana.com/oss/loki/","question":"Is Grafana Loki free to use?","confidence":0.6},{"answer":"Grafana Loki supports the web and a command-line interface. Platforms we have not confirmed are simply not listed here rather than ruled out.","source":"https://grafana.com/oss/loki/","question":"What platforms does Grafana Loki support?","confidence":0.6},{"answer":"Yes. Grafana Loki can be deployed cloud / SaaS and self-hosted, so it does not have to run on the vendor's infrastructure.","source":"https://grafana.com/oss/loki/","question":"Can Grafana Loki be self-hosted?","confidence":0.6},{"answer":"We have confirmed 4 integrations for Grafana Loki, including Prometheus, Grafana, Kubernetes and Docker. This is what we could verify from public sources, so the vendor may support others we have not indexed.","source":"https://grafana.com/oss/loki/","question":"What does Grafana Loki integrate with?","confidence":0.6},{"answer":"We have independently confirmed SOC 2, ISO 27001 and GDPR for Grafana Loki. Certifications we do not list are ones we have not been able to verify from public sources, which is not the same as Grafana Loki not holding them. Always confirm compliance directly before you rely on it.","source":"https://trust.grafana.com","question":"What security certifications does Grafana Loki have?","confidence":0.7},{"answer":"Yes. Grafana Loki is published under the AGPL-3.0 licence, a copyleft licence, so check its terms before embedding it in a closed-source product. Licence terms can change between releases, so verify against the repository for the version you intend to use.","source":"https://github.com/grafana/loki","question":"Is Grafana Loki open source?","confidence":0.95},{"answer":"Grafana Loki is available worldwide. The vendor is headquartered in the United States.","source":"https://grafana.com/oss/loki/","question":"Where is Grafana Loki available?","confidence":0.75}]` | `[{"answer":"A centralized analytics system that ingests and analyzes machine data at scale to enable security threat detection, operational visibility, and AI-powered automation. Supports cloud and self-managed deployment models. It is indexed under Log Management Software.","source":"https://www.splunk.com/en_us/products/pricing.html","question":"What is Splunk?","confidence":0.6},{"answer":"Splunk offers a free tier, so you can start without paying. Pricing changes often, so verify at source before relying on it.","source":"https://www.splunk.com/en_us/products/pricing.html","question":"Is Splunk free?","confidence":0.6},{"answer":"We have confirmed browser-based access to Splunk. That is the extent of what we could verify from public sources, so it may well offer desktop or mobile clients we have not indexed.","source":"https://www.splunk.com/en_us/products/pricing.html","question":"What platforms does Splunk support?","confidence":0.6},{"answer":"Yes. Splunk can be deployed cloud / SaaS, hybrid, on-premise, air-gapped and self-hosted, so it does not have to run on the vendor's infrastructure.","source":"https://www.splunk.com/en_us/products/pricing.html","question":"Can Splunk be self-hosted?","confidence":0.6},{"answer":"We have confirmed 14 integrations for Splunk, including OpenTelemetry, Cisco Talos, AWS, Amazon CloudWatch, Datadog, Google Stackdriver, Grafana and Honeybadger, plus 6 more. This is what we could verify from public sources, so the vendor may support others we have not indexed.","source":"https://www.splunk.com/en_us/products/pricing.html","question":"What does Splunk integrate with?","confidence":0.6}]` |
| deployment.options | `{"cloud":true,"self_hosted":true}` | `{"cloud":true,"hybrid":true,"air_gapped":true,"self_hosted":true}` |
| description.long | A horizontally scalable, multi-tenant log aggregation platform that stores compressed logs and indexes them by labels, enabling fast queries and integration with Prometheus-based monitoring stacks. | Splunk consolidates data from various sources and enables real-time analysis for security monitoring, system observability, and AI applications. It supports analyzing data in place across different storage backends, reducing costs and data movement while providing complete operational visibility. |
| features.capabilities | `{"hosting":"both","alerting":true,"log_role":"backend","live_tail":true,"dashboards":true,"query_language":"LogQL","full_text_search":false,"structured_parsing":true,"object_store_backed":true}` | `{"hosting":"both","alerting":true,"log_role":"platform","dashboards":true,"otel_support":"native","pii_redaction":true,"full_text_search":true,"retention_tiering":true,"structured_parsing":true}` |
| integrations.count | 6 | 2,000 |
| integrations.list | `[{"name":"Prometheus"},{"name":"Grafana"},{"name":"Kubernetes"},{"name":"Docker"},{"name":"Prometheus Alertmanager","native":true,"category":"observability","direction":"outbound"},{"name":"Alloy","native":true,"direction":"inbound"},{"name":"Promtail","native":true,"direction":"inbound"},{"name":"Alertmanager","native":true,"category":"alerting","direction":"outbound"}]` | `[{"name":"OpenTelemetry"},{"name":"Cisco Talos"},{"name":"AWS"},{"name":"Amazon CloudWatch","native":true,"category":"monitoring"},{"name":"Datadog","native":true,"category":"monitoring"},{"name":"Google Stackdriver","native":true,"category":"monitoring"},{"name":"Grafana","native":true,"category":"monitoring"},{"name":"Honeybadger","native":true,"category":"monitoring"},{"name":"Loadster","native":true,"category":"testing"},{"name":"New Relic","native":true,"category":"monitoring"},{"name":"Observium","native":true,"category":"monitoring"},{"name":"Opsview","native":true,"category":"monitoring"},{"name":"Pingdom","native":true,"category":"monitoring"},{"name":"Slack","native":true,"category":"chat"},{"name":"Amazon S3","direction":"inbound"},{"name":"Cisco Cloud Connect"}]` |
| language.primary | Go | - |
| license.spdx | AGPL-3.0 | - |
| market.availability | `{"hqCountry":"US","primaryMarkets":[],"availabilityScope":"global","availableCountries":[],"notAvailableCountries":[]}` | `{"primaryMarkets":[],"availabilityScope":"global","availableCountries":[],"notAvailableCountries":[]}` |
| platform.support | `{"cli":true,"web":true}` | `{"web":true}` |
| pricing | `{"type":"open_source","plans":[{"free":true,"name":"Grafana Cloud Logs Free","description":"Fully managed version","includedLimits":{"logs":"50GB/mo"}}],"summary":"Open source. Free tier with 50GB/mo on Grafana Cloud.","freeTier":true,"sourceUrl":"https://grafana.com/oss/loki/","retrievedAt":"2026-10-13T15:08:42.105Z"}` | `{"type":"usage","summary":"Activity-based, ingest, workload, and entity pricing models. Free 14-day trial.","currency":"USD","freeTier":false,"sourceUrl":"https://www.splunk.com/en_us/products/pricing.html","retrievedAt":"2026-09-23T13:31:47.239Z","freeTrialDays":14}` |
| pricing.free_tier | yes | no |
| pricing.model | open_source | commercial |
| pricing.price_level | free | unknown |
| pricing.transparent | yes | no |
| release.cadence_days | 9 | - |
| release.history | `[{"url":"https://github.com/grafana/loki/releases/tag/operator/v0.12.0","date":"2026-10-07T17:51:23Z","type":"stable","version":"operator/v0.12.0"},{"url":"https://github.com/grafana/loki/releases/tag/v3.7.8","date":"2026-09-17T15:51:10Z","type":"stable","version":"v3.7.8"},{"url":"https://github.com/grafana/loki/releases/tag/v3.6.17","date":"2026-09-17T11:41:38Z","type":"stable","version":"v3.6.17"},{"url":"https://github.com/grafana/loki/releases/tag/v3.7.7","date":"2026-08-27T20:20:03Z","type":"stable","version":"v3.7.7"},{"url":"https://github.com/grafana/loki/releases/tag/v3.6.16","date":"2026-08-27T21:54:42Z","type":"stable","version":"v3.6.16"},{"url":"https://github.com/grafana/loki/releases/tag/operator/v0.11.0","date":"2026-08-18T15:48:41Z","type":"stable","version":"operator/v0.11.0"},{"url":"https://github.com/grafana/loki/releases/tag/v3.7.6","date":"2026-08-06T09:42:29Z","type":"stable","version":"v3.7.6"},{"url":"https://github.com/grafana/loki/releases/tag/v3.7.5","date":"2026-08-05T03:41:08Z","type":"stable","version":"v3.7.5"},{"url":"https://github.com/grafana/loki/releases/tag/v3.6.15","date":"2026-08-06T09:59:23Z","type":"stable","version":"v3.6.15"},{"url":"https://github.com/grafana/loki/releases/tag/v3.6.14","date":"2026-08-05T00:25:17Z","type":"stable","version":"v3.6.14"},{"url":"https://github.com/grafana/loki/releases/tag/v3.6.13","date":"2026-07-24T07:37:20Z","type":"stable","version":"v3.6.13"},{"url":"https://github.com/grafana/loki/releases/tag/v3.7.4","date":"2026-07-24T07:49:34Z","type":"stable","version":"v3.7.4"},{"url":"https://github.com/grafana/loki/releases/tag/v3.7.3","date":"2026-06-24T16:32:37Z","type":"stable","version":"v3.7.3"},{"url":"https://github.com/grafana/loki/releases/tag/v3.6.12","date":"2026-06-24T15:04:58Z","type":"stable","version":"v3.6.12"},{"url":"https://github.com/grafana/loki/releases/tag/operator/v0.10.2","date":"2026-06-09T17:51:17Z","type":"stable","version":"operator/v0.10.2"},{"url":"https://github.com/grafana/loki/releases/tag/v3.7.2","date":"2026-05-13T12:22:43Z","type":"stable","version":"v3.7.2"},{"url":"https://github.com/grafana/loki/releases/tag/v3.6.11","date":"2026-05-13T12:06:16Z","type":"stable","version":"v3.6.11"},{"url":"https://github.com/grafana/loki/releases/tag/operator/v0.10.1","date":"2026-04-16T11:06:37Z","type":"stable","version":"operator/v0.10.1"},{"url":"https://github.com/grafana/loki/releases/tag/v3.6.10","date":"2026-04-03T15:41:29Z","type":"stable","version":"v3.6.10"},{"url":"https://github.com/grafana/loki/releases/tag/v3.7.1","date":"2026-03-27T11:47:38Z","type":"stable","version":"v3.7.1"}]` | - |
| reliability.status_page | yes | yes |
| security.disclosure_policy | yes | yes |
| security.fedramp | yes | - |
| security.gdpr | yes | - |
| security.iso27001 | yes | - |
| security.pci | yes | - |
| security.scorecard | 8 | - |
| security.soc2 | yes | - |
| security.trust_center | https://grafana.com/security/hall-of-fame/issue_35/ | - |
| security.vulnerabilities | `{"count":1,"source":"https://advisories.ecosyste.ms/api/v1/advisories?ecosystem=go&package_name=github.com%2Fgrafana%2Floki&per_page=100","last_12m":0,"max_severity":"MODERATE"}` | - |

## Capabilities (Log Management Software)

| Capability | Grafana Loki | Splunk |
|---|:--:|:--:|
| **Core** |  |  |
| Pipeline role | Backend | End-to-end platform |
| **Search** |  |  |
| Full-text log search | ✗ | ✓ |
| Live tail / stream | ✓ | - |
| **Processing** |  |  |
| Structured parsing | ✓ | ✓ |
| PII redaction at ingest | - | ✓ |
| **Ops** |  |  |
| Log-based alerting | ✓ | ✓ |
| Dashboards / visualisation | ✓ | ✓ |
| **Storage** |  |  |
| Retention tiering | - | ✓ |
| Object-store columnar backend | ✓ | - |
| **Interop** |  |  |
| OpenTelemetry logs | - | Native |
| Query language | LogQL | - |
| **Deployment** |  |  |
| Hosting | Cloud + self-hosted | Cloud + self-hosted |

*Source: vioscaleAI. Generated 2026-10-16T17:47:52.108Z. "-" = undocumented, not absent.*