head to head · open source
Prometheus vs acl
Prometheus has 66,109 GitHub stars, 10,839 forks, 890 open issues and last shipped 2 days ago. acl has 3,105 stars, 951 forks, 40 open issues and last shipped 5 days ago. Prometheus leads on adoption by 2,029% (66,109 vs 3,105 stars). Prometheus is written in Go under Apache-2.0; acl is written in C under LGPL-2.1. Prometheus has attracted 16% as many forks as stars, acl 31%. Prometheus was the more recently maintained of the two, and both are self-hostable with no licence fee.
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 | acl | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 66K | ★ 3.1K |
| License | Apache-2.0 | LGPL-2.1 |
| Written in | Go | C |
| Last push | 2026-09-17 | 2026-09-14 |
| Forks | ⑂ 11K | ⑂ 951 |
| 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 acl if
- You want the acl feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the LGPL-2.1 license terms
- Your stack matches C
- You evaluated both and acl 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 acl
Acl (Advanced C/C++ Library, "Advanced Cross Platform C/C++ Network Communication Library and Server Framework") is a cross platform C network communication library and server framework, with coroutine, HTTP/HTTPS/WebSocket, MQTT, SMTP, Redis, Memcached and MySQL/PostgreSQL/SQLite support, built for developers writing network servers and clients on Linux, Windows, Solaris, FreeBSD, macOS, Android, iOS and HarmonyOS.
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Frequently asked questions
Is Prometheus or acl more popular?
Prometheus has 66,109 GitHub stars and acl has 3,105. Prometheus has the larger community by that measure.
Are Prometheus and acl free?
Both are open source. Prometheus is licensed under Apache-2.0 and acl under LGPL-2.1. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between Prometheus and acl?
Prometheus is written in Go and acl in C. 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 acl?
Choose Prometheus if you want the larger community (66,109 stars) or its Apache-2.0 licence terms. Choose acl if its feature set, stack or LGPL-2.1 licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.