Axiom vs Grafana for Solo Developers

Quick Comparison

Axiom Overview

Axiom is a managed log and event data platform built around one core idea: store everything cheaply, query it when you need it. There's no sampling, no aggressive retention limits on the free tier, and no per-host pricing. You send your logs, metrics, and traces to Axiom datasets and query them using APL (Axiom Processing Language, similar to Kusto/KQL).

The free tier gives you 500 GB of ingest per month with 30 days of retention. That's a lot of data. For most solo developer projects, you could log everything your application produces and never come close to the limit. The dashboards are functional, the alerting works through monitors and notifiers, and the query experience is fast even on large datasets.

I started using Axiom because I needed a place to send application logs without paying a fortune. The query language took me a couple of hours to learn, but now I can slice and dice log data quickly. For the price (free), I can't complain.

Grafana Overview

Grafana is the open-source visualization platform that anchors monitoring stacks everywhere. It connects to data sources like Prometheus (metrics), Loki (logs), Tempo (traces), PostgreSQL, InfluxDB, and many more. You build dashboards that visualize your data exactly the way you want.

The ecosystem goes beyond dashboards. Self-host Grafana with Prometheus and Loki, and you have a complete observability stack for free. Or use Grafana Cloud, which bundles managed versions of these tools. The cloud free tier includes 10,000 active metrics, 50 GB of logs, and 50 GB of traces per month.

I run self-hosted Grafana on my server. Setting up the Prometheus + Loki + Grafana stack took about an hour with Docker Compose. Now I have full metrics dashboards, log search, and alerting. The community dashboard templates give you a head start, and the flexibility to build custom panels means you can visualize anything.

Key Differences

Managed vs self-hostable. Axiom is SaaS only. You send data to their platform and query it there. Grafana can be self-hosted for free (you own everything) or used as a managed cloud service. If you have a VPS and want to own your monitoring stack, Grafana gives you that option. Axiom doesn't.

Scope. Axiom focuses on log and event data analytics. It's very good at ingesting, storing, and querying large volumes of structured data. Grafana is a broader platform. With Prometheus, you get system metrics. With Loki, you get logs. With Tempo, you get traces. Grafana ties it all together in one dashboard. The scope is wider but the setup is more involved.

Metrics monitoring. Grafana + Prometheus gives you time-series metrics out of the box. CPU usage, memory, disk I/O, custom application metrics. Axiom can ingest metrics as events, but it's not a traditional time-series database. For monitoring server health with real-time graphs, Grafana + Prometheus is the more natural fit.

Log management. Both handle logs well, but differently. Axiom's 500 GB free ingest is more generous than Grafana Cloud's 50 GB free log tier. Axiom's APL queries are powerful for log analytics. Grafana's Loki uses LogQL, which is also capable but follows a different syntax. For pure log volume on a free tier, Axiom wins. For correlating logs with metrics on a dashboard, Grafana wins.

Query languages. Axiom uses APL (similar to Kusto/KQL). Grafana uses PromQL for metrics and LogQL for logs. All three have learning curves. If you've used Azure Data Explorer, Axiom's APL will feel familiar. If you've worked with Prometheus, PromQL is already in your toolkit.

Dashboard building. Grafana is the clear winner for dashboards. The panel system is flexible, beautiful, and connects to any data source. Axiom has dashboards, but they're more functional than beautiful. If you care about visualizing your data in custom ways, Grafana is designed for that.

Setup effort. Axiom takes minutes. Sign up, get an API key, start sending data. Grafana (self-hosted) takes an afternoon. Install Grafana, Prometheus, and Loki, configure scrape targets, build dashboards. Grafana Cloud falls somewhere in between. If speed matters, Axiom gets you running faster.

When to Choose Axiom

• You need generous free-tier log storage (500 GB/month)
• You want a managed service without self-hosting anything
• Log analytics and querying are your primary needs
• You prefer fast setup over deep customization
• Data retention matters and you want 30 days without paying extra

When to Choose Grafana

• You want to self-host your entire monitoring stack for free
• You need metrics monitoring (CPU, memory, custom app metrics) alongside logs
• Dashboard flexibility and custom visualizations matter
• You want to correlate metrics, logs, and traces in one interface
• You already have a server and enjoy building infrastructure

The Verdict

This is a close one. Both are excellent tools for solo developers, and the right choice depends on what you're building and how you like to work.

If you mainly need log management and want it to be easy, go with Axiom. The free tier is absurdly generous, the setup is quick, and the query language is powerful. You can send all your application logs to Axiom and search through them whenever something goes wrong.

If you want a complete observability stack with metrics dashboards, log search, and the ability to visualize everything in custom panels, go with Grafana. Self-hosting it is free, and the power you get from the Prometheus + Loki + Grafana combination is hard to beat.

My actual approach: I self-host Grafana with Prometheus for server metrics and use it for dashboards. For application logs where I want longer retention and simpler querying, I ship them to Axiom. Using both plays to each tool's strength. Grafana for visualization and real-time metrics, Axiom for log storage and analytics.

If picking just one, I'd lean toward Grafana for the broader coverage. But Axiom is the faster path to "my logs are searchable somewhere."