head to head · open source
Prometheus vs gel
Prometheus has 66,109 GitHub stars, 10,839 forks, 890 open issues and last shipped yesterday. gel has 14,170 stars, 450 forks, 948 open issues and last shipped 9 months ago. Prometheus leads on adoption by 367% (66,109 vs 14,170 stars). Prometheus is written in Go under Apache-2.0; gel is written in Python under Apache-2.0. Prometheus has attracted 16% as many forks as stars, gel 3%. 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 | gel | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 66K | ★ 14K |
| License | Apache-2.0 | Apache-2.0 |
| Written in | Go | Python |
| Last push | 2026-09-17 | 2025-12-24 |
| Forks | ⑂ 11K | ⑂ 450 |
| 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 gel if
- You want the gel feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the Apache-2.0 license terms
- Your stack matches Python
- You evaluated both and gel 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 gel
Gel is an open source graph relational database, written in Python and released under Apache 2.0, that gives application developers a declarative object type schema, the EdgeQL query language, a migrations system, client libraries and a command line tool in place of hand written SQL and a separate ORM layer.
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Frequently asked questions
Is Prometheus or gel more popular?
Prometheus has 66,109 GitHub stars and gel has 14,170. Prometheus has the larger community by that measure.
Are Prometheus and gel free?
Both are open source. Prometheus is licensed under Apache-2.0 and gel under Apache-2.0. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between Prometheus and gel?
Prometheus is written in Go and gel in Python. 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 gel?
Choose Prometheus if you want the larger community (66,109 stars) or its Apache-2.0 licence terms. Choose gel if its feature set, stack or Apache-2.0 licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.