head to head · open source
Prometheus vs InfluxDB
Prometheus has 66,109 GitHub stars, 10,839 forks, 890 open issues and last shipped 2 days ago. InfluxDB has 31,748 stars, 3,718 forks, 2,165 open issues and last shipped 2 days ago. Prometheus leads on adoption by 108% (66,109 vs 31,748 stars). Prometheus is written in Go under Apache-2.0; InfluxDB is written in Rust under Apache-2.0. Prometheus has attracted 16% as many forks as stars, InfluxDB 12%. InfluxDB was the more recently maintained of the two, and both are self-hostable with no licence fee. The two share 3 topic tags (metrics, monitoring, time-series), so they are genuine substitutes rather than adjacent tools.
Two open source projects, one decision. Both are free and self-hostable — the differences are community size, license terms, language stack and release pace.
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Side by side
| Prometheus | InfluxDB | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 66K | ★ 32K |
| License | Apache-2.0 | Apache-2.0 |
| Written in | Go | Rust |
| Last push | 2026-09-17 | 2026-09-17 |
| Forks | ⑂ 11K | ⑂ 3.7K |
| Self-hosting | Yes | Yes |
| Data ownership | Your server | Your server |
pick Prometheus if
- You weight community size — 66K stars and counting
- You want the Apache-2.0 license terms
- Your stack matches Go
- You value the larger contributor base for long-term maintenance
pick InfluxDB if
- You want the InfluxDB feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the Apache-2.0 license terms
- Your stack matches Rust
- You evaluated both and InfluxDB fits your workflow better
About Prometheus
Prometheus is an open source monitoring system and time series database, part of the Cloud Native Computing Foundation ecosystem. It collects metrics from configured targets at defined intervals, evaluates alerting rules, and visualizes results. Designed for reliability in dynamic environments, it operates without reliance on distributed storage, ensuring each server node functions independently.
read the full Prometheus overview →
About InfluxDB
InfluxDB 3 Core is an open source time series database purpose built for real time ingestion, processing, and querying of event and metrics data. It lives in the InfluxDB ecosystem and is the latest major version, generally available since April 2025. Built with Rust and leveraging Apache Arrow, DataFusion, and Parquet, it replaces older versions (v1.x, v2.x) with a new architecture optimized for low latency analytics and interactive workloads.
read the full InfluxDB overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is Prometheus or InfluxDB more popular?
Prometheus has 66,109 GitHub stars and InfluxDB has 31,748. Prometheus has the larger community by that measure.
Are Prometheus and InfluxDB free?
Both are open source. Prometheus is licensed under Apache-2.0 and InfluxDB under Apache-2.0. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between Prometheus and InfluxDB?
Prometheus is written in Go and InfluxDB in Rust. The practical differences are community size, licence terms, language stack and release cadence — all compared in the table above.
Which should I choose, Prometheus or InfluxDB?
Choose Prometheus if you want the larger community (66,109 stars) or its Apache-2.0 licence terms. Choose InfluxDB if its feature set, stack or Apache-2.0 licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.