head to head · open source
Prometheus vs aleph
Prometheus has 66,106 GitHub stars, 10,840 forks, 890 open issues and last shipped yesterday. aleph has 2,432 stars, 362 forks, 371 open issues and last shipped 7 months ago. Prometheus leads on adoption by 2,618% (66,106 vs 2,432 stars). Prometheus is written in Go under Apache-2.0; aleph is written in JavaScript under MIT. Prometheus has attracted 16% as many forks as stars, aleph 15%. 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 | aleph | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 66K | ★ 2.4K |
| License | Apache-2.0 | MIT |
| Written in | Go | JavaScript |
| Last push | 2026-09-17 | 2026-02-20 |
| Forks | ⑂ 11K | ⑂ 362 |
| 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 aleph if
- You want the aleph feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the MIT license terms
- Your stack matches JavaScript
- You evaluated both and aleph 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 aleph
Aleph is an MIT licensed open source search and browsing tool for large collections of documents and structured data. It indexes PDF, Word, HTML, CSV, XLS, and SQL inputs so users can search mixed evidence sources in one tool. The project lives in the open source data search, graph database, investigative journalism, and OSINT ecosystem, and it is built with investigative reporting as a primary use case.
read the full aleph overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is Prometheus or aleph more popular?
Prometheus has 66,106 GitHub stars and aleph has 2,432. Prometheus has the larger community by that measure.
Are Prometheus and aleph free?
Both are open source. Prometheus is licensed under Apache-2.0 and aleph under MIT. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between Prometheus and aleph?
Prometheus is written in Go and aleph in JavaScript. 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 aleph?
Choose Prometheus if you want the larger community (66,106 stars) or its Apache-2.0 licence terms. Choose aleph if its feature set, stack or MIT licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.