Grafana Loki

Free plan Open source APILinuxSelf-hostedWebWindows

What Grafana Loki is

Grafana Loki is a log aggregation system for storing and querying logs from applications and infrastructure. It can be self-hosted, scales horizontally, supports high availability and multiple tenants, and indexes labels rather than the contents of log lines. LogQL lets users explore logs in Grafana or with the LogCLI command-line tool. Grafana says Loki stores logs in object storage for durable, high-throughput use at petabyte scale. It can evaluate alerting rules on incoming logs and send resulting alerts to Prometheus Alertmanager. Native integrations include Prometheus, Grafana, and Kubernetes. Documented ways to send logs 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 released under AGPLv3 and supports live log tailing, log pipelines, and structured log parsing. It does not include an authentication layer, so Grafana instructs users to put an authenticating reverse proxy in front of its services. Grafana also warns that high-cardinality labels can reduce performance and cost-effectiveness.

Who it suits

Loki suits teams that need to aggregate and query application or infrastructure logs, including self-hosted deployments. Its multi-tenant design and integrations may suit environments already using Grafana, Prometheus, or Kubernetes.

What it does well

Horizontally scalable and highly available
LogQL queries work in Grafana or LogCLI
Supports alerting rules on incoming logs
Integrates natively with Prometheus, Grafana, and Kubernetes

What to know first

Does not include an authentication layer
High-cardinality labels can reduce performance and cost-effectiveness
Self-hosted Loki requires a reverse proxy for authentication

Limits

Grafana Cloud Logs Free includes 50 GB ingested per month and 14-day retention. Self-hosted Loki is self-managed; the product page states no price for it.

Plans

Plan	Billed and limits	Price
Loki (self-hosted)	AGPLv3 open-source project; self-managed · No price stated on the Loki product page	Free
Grafana Cloud Logs Free	always free · 50 GB ingested/month · 14-day retention · community support	Free
Grafana Loki OSS self-hosted	free open-source software · self-administered installation	Free
Grafana Cloud Logs Pro	$19/month + usage · 50 GB included then usage billing · 30-day retention · 8×5 email support · $0.050/GB process · $0.400/GB write · $0.100/GB retain	$19 a month
Grafana Cloud Logs Enterprise	minimum $25,000/year spend commit · custom retention · premium support · public cloud, federal cloud or bring-your-own-cloud deployment	On request

As grafana.com lists them, read 11 Oct 2026. The maker's own page has the final word.

Getting started

Visit the Grafana Loki website.
Choose self-hosted Loki or a Grafana Cloud Logs plan.
For self-hosting, select a documented installation route such as Helm, Docker, or a local installation.
Send logs with a documented shipper such as Grafana Alloy, OpenTelemetry, or Fluent Bit.
Explore logs with LogQL in Grafana or LogCLI.

Verdict

Loki offers several ingestion and installation paths, plus querying and alerting for aggregated logs. Plan for an authenticating reverse proxy and take care with label cardinality.

Questions

Is Grafana Loki free?

The self-hosted Loki project is free and released under AGPLv3. Grafana Cloud Logs also has a free plan with 50 GB ingested per month and 14-day retention.

What does Grafana Cloud Logs Free include?

It includes 50 GB of log ingestion per month, 14-day retention, and community support.

What does Grafana Cloud Logs Pro cost?

The Pro plan costs $19 a month for the platform fee, plus usage. Processing, writing, and retention are charged separately; 50 GB per month is included, followed by pay-as-you-go usage.

Where can Loki run?

Loki supports self-hosted deployment. Grafana also offers Grafana Cloud Logs plans.

Does Loki include authentication?

No. Loki does not include an authentication layer; Grafana instructs users to place an authenticating reverse proxy in front of its services.

What license does self-hosted Loki use?

Loki is released under the AGPLv3 license.

Facts from Grafana Loki's own pages

Alerting: The Loki ruler evaluates log queries continuously and integrates with Prometheus Alertmanager or Grafana alerting. · grafana.com, 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, 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, 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, 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, 15 Oct 2026
Deployment options: self-hosted · grafana.com, 24 Sept 2026
Documentation depth: The documentation covers architecture, deployment modes, configuration, ingestion clients, operations, multi-tenancy, LogQL, APIs, troubleshooting, upgrades and release notes. · grafana.com, 15 Oct 2026
Free plan: Yes · grafana.com, 24 Sept 2026
Grafana integration: Grafana has built-in Loki support, so a separate data-source plugin is not required. · grafana.com, 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, 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, 15 Oct 2026
Installation: Grafana documents installation using Helm, Tanka, Docker or Docker Compose, local installation, and source builds. · grafana.com, 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, 15 Oct 2026
Label-based indexing: Loki indexes stream labels and metadata instead of indexing the full text of each log line. · grafana.com, 15 Oct 2026
Label cardinality: Grafana warns that high-cardinality labels can significantly reduce Loki performance and cost-effectiveness. · grafana.com, 11 Oct 2026
License: Grafana states that Loki is released under the GNU Affero General Public License version 3. · grafana.com, 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, 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, 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, 15 Oct 2026
Limit: learning curve: TrustRadius reviewers report a steep learning curve, difficulty with long-term log insight and a need for better query suggestions and syntax checking. · trustradius.com, 15 Oct 2026
Limit: operational complexity: Independent review coverage says production deployments commonly involve six or more independently scaling components and require Kubernetes expertise. · modern-datatools.com, 15 Oct 2026
Limit: reporting and forensics: Independent guidance says Loki is weak for immutable audit trails, scheduled reports, PDF or spreadsheet exports, broad forensic searches and compliance-heavy reporting. · datavire.com, 15 Oct 2026
Live log tailing: Yes · grafana.com, 24 Sept 2026
Log pipelines: Yes · grafana.com, 24 Sept 2026