head to head · open source
Prometheus vs flipper
Prometheus has 66,109 GitHub stars, 10,839 forks, 890 open issues and last shipped 2 days ago. flipper has 3,969 stars, 441 forks, 33 open issues and last shipped 3 days ago. Prometheus leads on adoption by 1,566% (66,109 vs 3,969 stars). Prometheus is written in Go under Apache-2.0; flipper is written in Ruby under MIT. Prometheus has attracted 16% as many forks as stars, flipper 11%. 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 | flipper | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 66K | ★ 4.0K |
| License | Apache-2.0 | MIT |
| Written in | Go | Ruby |
| Last push | 2026-09-17 | 2026-09-16 |
| Forks | ⑂ 11K | ⑂ 441 |
| 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 flipper if
- You want the flipper feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the MIT license terms
- Your stack matches Ruby
- You evaluated both and flipper 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 flipper
Flipper is an MIT licensed Ruby and Rails library that gives applications control over who has access to features, letting teams enable or disable functionality for everyone, specific actors, groups, a percentage of actors, or a percentage of time.
read the full flipper overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is Prometheus or flipper more popular?
Prometheus has 66,109 GitHub stars and flipper has 3,969. Prometheus has the larger community by that measure.
Are Prometheus and flipper free?
Both are open source. Prometheus is licensed under Apache-2.0 and flipper under MIT. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between Prometheus and flipper?
Prometheus is written in Go and flipper in Ruby. 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 flipper?
Choose Prometheus if you want the larger community (66,109 stars) or its Apache-2.0 licence terms. Choose flipper if its feature set, stack or MIT licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.