Grafana
SuperTokens
| Feature | Grafana | SuperTokens |
|---|---|---|
| Pricing | Free / from $29/mo | Free / from $0.02/mo |
| Free Plan | ✓ Yes | ✓ Yes |
| Rating | 4.6 / 5 | 4.3 / 5 |
| Best For | devops-teams, sre-teams, data-engineers, iot-monitoring | saas-developers, startups, privacy-focused-apps, self-hosters |
| Founded | 2014 | 2019 |
| Dashboards | ✓ | ✗ |
| Data Sources | ✓ | ✗ |
| Alerting | ✓ | ✗ |
| Annotations | ✓ | ✗ |
| Plugins | ✓ | ✗ |
| Loki Logs | ✓ | ✗ |
| Tempo Traces | ✓ | ✗ |
| Mimir Metrics | ✓ | ✗ |
| Email Password | ✗ | ✓ |
| Social Login | ✗ | ✓ |
| Passwordless | ✗ | ✓ |
| Mfa | ✗ | ✓ |
| Session Management | ✗ | ✓ |
| Pre Built Ui | ✗ | ✓ |
| Self Hostable | ✗ | ✓ |
✓ 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
✓ SuperTokens Pros
- Open-source with free self-hosting
- Pre-built UI components for quick integration
- Session management with anti-CSRF protection
- Multiple auth methods (email, social, passwordless, MFA)
✗ SuperTokens Cons
- Smaller ecosystem than Auth0 or Firebase Auth
- Documentation has gaps for complex setups
- Limited admin dashboard features
The Verdict
Grafana is built for devops teams and sre teams, with a focus on dashboards and data-sources. SuperTokens targets saas developers and startups and leads with email-password and social-login.
On pricing, SuperTokens is the clear winner for budget-conscious users — starting at $0.02/mo compared to $29/mo for Grafana. That $28.98/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 7), while SuperTokens 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 with free self-hosting matters most to you, SuperTokens may still be the right call.