head to head · open source
Prometheus vs dbx
Prometheus has 66,106 GitHub stars, 10,840 forks, 890 open issues and last shipped yesterday. dbx has 19,957 stars, 1,937 forks, 1,406 open issues and last shipped yesterday. Prometheus leads on adoption by 231% (66,106 vs 19,957 stars). Prometheus is written in Go under Apache-2.0; dbx is written in Rust under Apache-2.0. Prometheus has attracted 16% as many forks as stars, dbx 10%. dbx 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 | dbx | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 66K | ★ 20K |
| License | Apache-2.0 | Apache-2.0 |
| Written in | Go | Rust |
| Last push | 2026-09-17 | 2026-09-17 |
| Forks | ⑂ 11K | ⑂ 1.9K |
| 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 dbx if
- You want the dbx 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 dbx 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 dbx
dbx is a roughly 25 MB cross platform database client written in Rust that connects to more than 90 databases and ships as a desktop application, a Docker container, a CLI, and a browser based web version, aimed at developers and teams who want a single lightweight tool for MySQL, PostgreSQL, SQLite, Redis, MongoDB, DuckDB, SQL Server, Dameng, and many others.
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Frequently asked questions
Is Prometheus or dbx more popular?
Prometheus has 66,106 GitHub stars and dbx has 19,957. Prometheus has the larger community by that measure.
Are Prometheus and dbx free?
Both are open source. Prometheus is licensed under Apache-2.0 and dbx under Apache-2.0. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between Prometheus and dbx?
Prometheus is written in Go and dbx 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 dbx?
Choose Prometheus if you want the larger community (66,106 stars) or its Apache-2.0 licence terms. Choose dbx if its feature set, stack or Apache-2.0 licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.