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Comparison · DevOps

Grafana vs Rivet

A side-by-side editorial comparison of Grafana and Rivet — release velocity, themes, recent moves, and the top alternatives to consider.

Grafana vs Rivet: at a glance

FeatureGrafanaRivet
SectorDevOps, Infra & APIsDevOps
Velocity score5.07.5
Sparks · 30d03
Top themessecurity-patches, cve-disclosure, lts-backports, dashboardsactors, ai agents, sqlite, forking
Last editorial update5mo ago2d ago
WebsiteVisit →—

What is Grafana?

Grafana ships a coordinated multi-branch security wave on top of the v13 release.

The recent timeline is dominated by security work: a synchronized May 12 release of patched builds across five supported lines (11.6, 12.2, 12.3, 12.4, 13.0) covering the same ten CVEs, plus a June 2 follow-on patch for 13.0.2 addressing a fresh batch including a Loki path-traversal and a Geomap URL sanitization fix. Underneath that, v13.0 itself shipped in April with bundled-datasource dashboards, the redesigned logs panel from v12.3, and the dynamic-dashboard automation from v12.4.

Read the full Grafana trajectory →

What is Rivet?

Rivet Actors can now fork in 20 ms, SQLite database included, without copying data.

Rivet builds infrastructure for long-lived actors and AI agents: BYOC, OpenTelemetry tracing, actor-scoped JWTs and agentOS Hosted VMs. The 3.0 Preview made Rivet a single stateless binary on S3, and the Rust SDK reached general availability on 6 November. On 11 November Rivet added actor forking: a fork starts in 20 ms with the original actor's state and SQLite database and costs nothing until it writes.

Read the full Rivet trajectory →

Grafana vs Rivet: editorial side-by-side

Grafana logo
Grafana
DEVOPSINFRA · APIS
5.0

Grafana ships a coordinated multi-branch security wave on top of the v13 release.

◆ Current state

The recent timeline is dominated by security work: a synchronized May 12 release of patched builds across five supported lines (11.6, 12.2, 12.3, 12.4, 13.0) covering the same ten CVEs, plus a June 2 follow-on patch for 13.0.2 addressing a fresh batch including a Loki path-traversal and a Geomap URL sanitization fix. Underneath that, v13.0 itself shipped in April with bundled-datasource dashboards, the redesigned logs panel from v12.3, and the dynamic-dashboard automation from v12.4.

◆ Where it's heading

Grafana is operating a mature CNA-style disclosure pipeline — vendor-acknowledgement timestamps in patch notes suggest a private partner channel and synchronized backports. The product direction itself is consolidating around dashboard automation, logs UX, and easier onboarding. The two streams (feature shipping and security cadence) run in parallel without slowing each other.

◆ Prediction

Expect 13.0.x patch releases at roughly monthly cadence as more partner-acknowledged vulns land, alongside continued investment in dashboard templating and the logs/traces explorers that v12.3 and v12.4 set up.

R
Rivet
DEVOPS
7.5

Rivet Actors can now fork in 20 ms, SQLite database included, without copying data.

◆ Current state

Rivet builds infrastructure for long-lived actors and AI agents: BYOC, OpenTelemetry tracing, actor-scoped JWTs and agentOS Hosted VMs. The 3.0 Preview made Rivet a single stateless binary on S3, and the Rust SDK reached general availability on 6 November. On 11 November Rivet added actor forking: a fork starts in 20 ms with the original actor's state and SQLite database and costs nothing until it writes.

◆ Where it's heading

Rivet keeps turning its S3-backed storage engine into features for agent workloads. Copy-on-write forking follows from the 3.0 storage design and gives agents a cheap way to branch a session, try something and discard it. The SDK and auth work of the past two months points to Rivet positioning actors as the runtime for agent backends.

◆ Prediction

Forking is likely to show up next in agentOS and the Pi integrations as a way to branch agent runs; the entries do not say when 3.0 leaves preview.

Alternatives to Grafana and Rivet

Other DevOps products tracked by Sparkpulse, ranked by recent ship velocity. Each card links to a full editorial trajectory and lets you pivot into a head-to-head comparison with either Grafana or Rivet.

See all Grafana alternatives → · See all Rivet alternatives →

Recent activity from Grafana and Rivet

Latest ship moves from both products, interleaved chronologically. ⚡ = editorial spark.

  1. 2d agoRivetIntroducing OpenOrange: Run Cloudflare Workers Anywhere ⚡
  2. 3d agoRivetIntroducing Actor Forking for SQLite ⚡
  3. 8d agoRivetRust SDK for Rivet Actors Is Now Generally Available
  4. 19d agoRivetIntroducing Rivet 3.0 Preview ⚡
  5. 1mo agoRivetIntroducing agentOS 0.4 & Hosted VMs
  6. 1mo agoRivetIntroducing Pi Durable for Rivet
  7. 5mo agoGrafana13.0.2 security patch: Geomap URL, body-size cap, Loki path traversal
  8. 6mo agoGrafana12.3.6 security patch (10 CVEs + Alertmanager fix)
  9. 6mo agoGrafana12.4.3 security patch (10 CVE backports)
  10. 6mo agoGrafana12.2.8 security patch (10 CVE backports to 12.2 LTS)
  11. 6mo agoGrafana11.6.14 security patch (10 CVE backports to 11.6 LTS)
  12. 6mo agoGrafana13.0.1 security patch (10 CVEs on current major)

Frequently asked questions

What is the difference between Grafana and Rivet?

They serve adjacent needs but don't currently overlap on shipped themes. Rivet is currently shipping more aggressively (velocity 7.5 vs 5.0), with 3 editorial sparks in the last 30 days against 0. See the at-a-glance table above for a side-by-side breakdown of velocity, recent sparks, and editorial themes.

Is Grafana better than Rivet?

Sparkpulse doesn't pick a winner — we score release velocity, not feature parity. Rivet is currently shipping more aggressively (velocity 7.5 vs 5.0), with 3 editorial sparks in the last 30 days against 0. For your specific use case, the alternatives sections above list other DevOps products to evaluate alongside.

What are the best alternatives to Grafana?

Top Grafana alternatives in DevOps are ranked by recent ship velocity. Browse the "Grafana alternatives" section above for the current picks, or visit /alternatives/grafana for the full list with editorial commentary on each.

What are the best alternatives to Rivet?

Top Rivet alternatives in DevOps are ranked by recent ship velocity. Browse the "Rivet alternatives" section above for the current picks, or visit /alternatives/rivet for the full list with editorial commentary on each.