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Grafana Loki
What it is
Grafana Loki is a log aggregation system for storing and querying logs from applications and infrastructure. It scales horizontally, supports high availability and multiple tenants, and indexes labels rather than log-line contents. LogQL lets users explore logs in Grafana or with the LogCLI command-line tool. Grafana says Loki stores logs in object storage for high throughput, durability, and petabyte-scale use. It can evaluate rules on incoming logs and send alerts to Prometheus Alertmanager, with native integrations for Prometheus, Grafana, and Kubernetes. Documented log shippers include Grafana Alloy, OpenTelemetry, Kubernetes Monitoring Helm, Docker, Fluent Bit, Fluentd, and Logstash. Installation options include Helm, Tanka, Docker or Docker Compose, local installation, and source builds. Loki is self-hosted software released under AGPLv3; Grafana Cloud Logs plans are also listed. Loki itself has no authentication layer, so an authenticating reverse proxy is needed in front of its services. Grafana also warns that high-cardinality labels can reduce performance and cost-effectiveness.
For and against
For
- Offers LogQL querying in Grafana or LogCLI.
- Supports multi-tenant deployments.
- Can send log alerts to Prometheus Alertmanager.
- Documents multiple installation and log-shipping options.
Against
- Does not include an authentication layer.
- High-cardinality labels can reduce performance.
- Self-hosted Loki is managed by the user.
The verdict
Loki offers scalable log storage and querying, with a broad set of documented shippers and installation options. Plan for a separate authentication layer and careful label design when deploying it.
Who it suits
Loki suits teams that need to aggregate and query application or infrastructure logs and can manage self-hosted deployment or use Grafana Cloud Logs. Its label-based indexing is a consideration for teams choosing log-label cardinality.
Plans and prices
Grafana Cloud Logs Free
50 GB ingested/month · 14-day retention · community support
Read 15 Oct 2026 · grafana.com
Grafana Loki OSS self-hosted
self-administered installation
Read 15 Oct 2026 · grafana.com
Grafana Cloud Logs Pro
50 GB included then usage billing · 30-day retention · 8×5 email support · $0.050/GB process
Read 15 Oct 2026 · grafana.com
Loki (self-hosted)
No price stated on the Loki product page
Read 11 Oct 2026 · grafana.com
Grafana Cloud Logs Enterprise
custom retention · premium support · public cloud, federal cloud or bring-your-own-cloud deployment
Read 15 Oct 2026 · grafana.com
On the record
- Alerting
- The Loki ruler evaluates log queries continuously and integrates with Prometheus Alertmanager or Grafana alerting.grafana.com · read 15 Oct 2026
- Architecture
- Loki is horizontally scalable, highly available, and multi-tenant, and it indexes labels rather than the contents of log lines.grafana.com · read 11 Oct 2026
- Authentication limit
- Loki does not include an authentication layer, so Grafana instructs users to put an authenticating reverse proxy in front of its services.grafana.com · read 11 Oct 2026
- Authentication limitation
- Loki ships without an authentication layer, so operators must place an authenticating reverse proxy in front of it.grafana.com · read 15 Oct 2026
- Compressed storage
- Log contents are compressed into chunks stored in object storage such as Amazon S3, Google Cloud Storage, Azure Blob Storage or a local filesystem.grafana.com · read 15 Oct 2026
- Deployment options
- self-hostedgrafana.com · read 24 Sep 2026
- Documentation depth
- The documentation covers architecture, deployment modes, configuration, ingestion clients, operations, multi-tenancy, LogQL, APIs, troubleshooting, upgrades and release notes.grafana.com · read 15 Oct 2026
- Grafana integration
- Grafana has built-in Loki support, so a separate data-source plugin is not required.grafana.com · read 15 Oct 2026
- HTTP API
- The public HTTP API supports log push, OTLP ingestion, instant and range queries, tailing, labels, rules, deletion and cluster status endpoints.grafana.com · read 15 Oct 2026
- Independent assessment
- Thoughtworks’ 2025 Technology Radar says Loki reduces operational complexity and storage costs, integrates tightly with Grafana and Alloy, and added native OpenTelemetry support in version 3.0.thoughtworks.com · read 15 Oct 2026
- Installation
- Grafana documents installation using Helm, Tanka, Docker or Docker Compose, local installation, and source builds.grafana.com · read 11 Oct 2026
- Integrations
- Official documentation lists Grafana Alloy as the recommended collector and describes OpenTelemetry, Promtail, Fluent Bit, Fluentd, Vector, Logstash and other clients.grafana.com · read 15 Oct 2026
- Label-based indexing
- Loki indexes stream labels and metadata instead of indexing the full text of each log line.grafana.com · read 15 Oct 2026
- Label cardinality
- Grafana warns that high-cardinality labels can significantly reduce Loki performance and cost-effectiveness.grafana.com · read 11 Oct 2026
- License
- Grafana states that Loki is released under the GNU Affero General Public License version 3.grafana.com · read 15 Oct 2026
- License and project history
- Loki is released under AGPLv3, and Grafana says the project started at Grafana Labs in 2018.grafana.com · read 11 Oct 2026
- Limit: full-text search
- Independent analysis says ad-hoc full-text searches over large time ranges can be slower than Elasticsearch or Splunk because Loki filters labels before scanning log contents.modern-datatools.com · read 15 Oct 2026
- Limit: label discipline
- Reviewers warn that high-cardinality or poorly chosen labels can cause slow queries, large scans and production performance problems.modern-datatools.com · read 15 Oct 2026
