Directus
Grafana
| Feature | Directus | Grafana |
|---|---|---|
| Pricing | Free / from $99/mo | Free / from $29/mo |
| Free Plan | ✓ Yes | ✓ Yes |
| Rating | 4.3 / 5 | 4.6 / 5 |
| Best For | developers, agencies, content-teams, data-driven-teams | devops-teams, sre-teams, data-engineers, iot-monitoring |
| Founded | 2016 | 2014 |
| Data Studio | ✓ | ✗ |
| Rest Api | ✓ | ✗ |
| Graphql Api | ✓ | ✗ |
| Flows | ✓ | ✗ |
| Permissions | ✓ | ✗ |
| File Management | ✓ | ✗ |
| Dashboards | ✗ | ✓ |
| Data Sources | ✗ | ✓ |
| Alerting | ✗ | ✓ |
| Annotations | ✗ | ✓ |
| Plugins | ✗ | ✓ |
| Loki Logs | ✗ | ✓ |
| Tempo Traces | ✗ | ✓ |
| Mimir Metrics | ✗ | ✓ |
✓ Directus Pros
- Open source
- Database-first
- Beautiful admin UI
- REST + GraphQL
✗ Directus Cons
- Self-hosting required for free
- Smaller community
- Documentation gaps
✓ Grafana Pros
- Connects to virtually any data source
- Beautiful and highly customizable dashboards
- Open-source with massive community
- Grafana Cloud includes Loki, Tempo, and Mimir
- Alerting across all data sources
✗ Grafana Cons
- Self-hosting requires DevOps expertise
- Dashboard creation has a learning curve
- Plugin quality varies
The Verdict
Directus is built for developers and agencies, with a focus on data-studio and rest-api. Grafana targets devops teams and sre teams and leads with dashboards and data-sources.
On pricing, Grafana is the clear winner for budget-conscious users — starting at $29/mo compared to $99/mo for Directus. That $70/mo difference adds up quickly for growing teams.
Both offer free plans, so you can test each with your real workflow before committing to a subscription.
Feature-wise, Grafana offers broader built-in capabilities (8 features vs 6), while Directus takes a more focused approach — which can mean a simpler, faster onboarding experience.
Bottom line: Grafana has a slight overall edge — but if open source matters most to you, Directus may still be the right call.