head to head · open source
Prometheus vs algernon
Prometheus has 66,906 GitHub stars, 10,969 forks, 890 open issues and last shipped yesterday. algernon has 3,033 stars, 150 forks, 19 open issues and last shipped yesterday. Prometheus leads on adoption by 2,106% (66,906 vs 3,033 stars). Prometheus is written in Go under Apache-2.0; algernon is written in JavaScript under BSD-3-Clause. Prometheus has attracted 16% as many forks as stars, algernon 5%. 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.
← all 20902 open source comparisons
Side by side
| Prometheus | algernon | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 67K | ★ 3.0K |
| License | Apache-2.0 | BSD-3-Clause |
| Written in | Go | JavaScript |
| Last push | 2026-11-02 | 2026-11-02 |
| Forks | ⑂ 11K | ⑂ 150 |
| Self-hosting | Yes | Yes |
| Data ownership | Your server | Your server |
pick Prometheus if
- You weight community size — 67K 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 algernon if
- You want the algernon feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the BSD-3-Clause license terms
- Your stack matches JavaScript
- You evaluated both and algernon fits your workflow better
About Prometheus
Prometheus Visit prometheus.io for the full documentation, examples and guides. [ ][quay] [ ][hub] Prometheus, a Cloud Native Computing Foundation project, is a systems and service monitoring system. It collects metrics from configured targets at given intervals, evaluates rule expressions, displays the results, and can trigger alerts when specified conditions are observed. The features that distinguish Prometheus from other metrics and monitoring systems are: A multi dimensional data model (time series defined by metric name and set of key/value dimensions) PromQL, a powerful and flexible query language to…
read the full Prometheus overview →
About algernon
Web server with built in support for HTTP/2, HTTP/3 (QUIC), Lua, Teal, Markdown, Pongo2, HyperApp, Amber, Sass(SCSS), GCSS, JSX, TypeScript, Ollama (LLMs), BoltDB (built in, stores the database in a file, like SQLite), Redis, Valkey, PostgreSQL, SQLite, MariaDB, MySQL, MSSQL, IPv6, npm less React 19, rate limiting, graceful shutdown, plugins, users and permissions. All in one small self contained executable. Distro Packages Quick installation Requires Go 1.26 or later. go install github.com/xyproto/algernon@latest Or manually (development version): Releases and pre built images See the release page for releases…
read the full algernon overview →
More in Infrastructure & Operations
Related comparisons
More Databases projects
Compare either of these against the rest of the Databases field.
Frequently asked questions
Is Prometheus or algernon more popular?
Prometheus has 66,906 GitHub stars and algernon has 3,033. Prometheus has the larger community by that measure.
Are Prometheus and algernon free?
Both are open source. Prometheus is licensed under Apache-2.0 and algernon under BSD-3-Clause. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between Prometheus and algernon?
Prometheus is written in Go and algernon 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 algernon?
Choose Prometheus if you want the larger community (66,906 stars) or its Apache-2.0 licence terms. Choose algernon if its feature set, stack or BSD-3-Clause licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.