head to head · open source
Prometheus vs badger
Prometheus has 66,109 GitHub stars, 10,839 forks, 890 open issues and last shipped yesterday. badger has 15,761 stars, 1,318 forks, 69 open issues and last shipped 10 days ago. Prometheus leads on adoption by 319% (66,109 vs 15,761 stars). Prometheus is written in Go under Apache-2.0; badger is written in Go under Apache-2.0. Prometheus has attracted 16% as many forks as stars, badger 8%. 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 | badger | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 66K | ★ 16K |
| License | Apache-2.0 | Apache-2.0 |
| Written in | Go | Go |
| Last push | 2026-09-17 | 2026-09-08 |
| Forks | ⑂ 11K | ⑂ 1.3K |
| 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 badger if
- You want the badger feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the Apache-2.0 license terms
- Your stack matches Go
- You evaluated both and badger 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 badger
BadgerDB is an embeddable, persistent, fast key value database written in pure Go, aimed at Go developers who need local high performance storage inside their own applications rather than a separate database server.
read the full badger overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is Prometheus or badger more popular?
Prometheus has 66,109 GitHub stars and badger has 15,761. Prometheus has the larger community by that measure.
Are Prometheus and badger free?
Both are open source. Prometheus is licensed under Apache-2.0 and badger under Apache-2.0. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between Prometheus and badger?
Prometheus is written in Go and badger in Go. 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 badger?
Choose Prometheus if you want the larger community (66,109 stars) or its Apache-2.0 licence terms. Choose badger if its feature set, stack or Apache-2.0 licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.