head to head · open source
Prometheus vs GreptimeDB
Prometheus has 66,906 GitHub stars, 10,969 forks, 890 open issues and last shipped yesterday. GreptimeDB has 6,778 stars, 576 forks, 264 open issues and last shipped yesterday. Prometheus leads on adoption by 887% (66,906 vs 6,778 stars). Prometheus is written in Go under Apache-2.0; GreptimeDB is written in Rust under Apache-2.0. Prometheus has attracted 16% as many forks as stars, GreptimeDB 8%. Prometheus was the more recently maintained of the two, and both are self-hostable with no licence fee. The two share 2 topic tags (metrics, prometheus), so they are genuine substitutes rather than adjacent tools.
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 | GreptimeDB | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 67K | ★ 6.8K |
| License | Apache-2.0 | Apache-2.0 |
| Written in | Go | Rust |
| Last push | 2026-11-02 | 2026-11-02 |
| Forks | ⑂ 11K | ⑂ 576 |
| 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 GreptimeDB if
- You want the GreptimeDB 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 GreptimeDB 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 GreptimeDB
Metrics, logs, and traces. One engine, on your infrastructure. A columnar database for metrics, logs, and traces on object storage. Apache 2.0 licensed core. User Guide API Docs Roadmap 2026 stable for production · canary includes pre releases · nightly is a weekly snapshot of main Introduction Why You Might Use It Overview What's Supported Compatibility and Migration Limitations and Edition Boundary Architecture Try GreptimeDB Getting Started Build From Source Tools & Extensions Project Status Community License Commercial Support Contributing Acknowledgement Introduction GreptimeDB is an open source…
read the full GreptimeDB overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is Prometheus or GreptimeDB more popular?
Prometheus has 66,906 GitHub stars and GreptimeDB has 6,778. Prometheus has the larger community by that measure.
Are Prometheus and GreptimeDB free?
Both are open source. Prometheus is licensed under Apache-2.0 and GreptimeDB under Apache-2.0. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between Prometheus and GreptimeDB?
Prometheus is written in Go and GreptimeDB 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 GreptimeDB?
Choose Prometheus if you want the larger community (66,906 stars) or its Apache-2.0 licence terms. Choose GreptimeDB if its feature set, stack or Apache-2.0 licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.