head to head · open source
Prometheus vs Instant
Prometheus has 66,906 GitHub stars, 10,969 forks, 890 open issues and last shipped yesterday. Instant has 10,564 stars, 421 forks, 19 open issues and last shipped 15 days ago. Prometheus leads on adoption by 533% (66,906 vs 10,564 stars). Prometheus is written in Go under Apache-2.0; Instant is written in TypeScript under Apache-2.0. Prometheus has attracted 16% as many forks as stars, Instant 4%. 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 | Instant | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 67K | ★ 11K |
| License | Apache-2.0 | Apache-2.0 |
| Written in | Go | TypeScript |
| Last push | 2026-11-02 | 2026-10-19 |
| Forks | ⑂ 11K | ⑂ 421 |
| 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 Instant if
- You want the Instant feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the Apache-2.0 license terms
- Your stack matches TypeScript
- You evaluated both and Instant 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 Instant
Get Started · Examples · Try the Demo · Docs · Discord Instant is the best backend for AI coded apps. You get auth, permissions, storage, presence, and streams — everything you need to ship apps your users will love. You write relational queries in the shape of the data you want and Instant handles all the data fetching, permission checking, and offline caching. When you change data, optimistic updates and rollbacks are handled for you as well. Plus, every query is multiplayer by default. We also support ephemeral updates, like cursors, or who's online. Currently we have SDKs for Javascript, React, and React…
read the full Instant overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is Prometheus or Instant more popular?
Prometheus has 66,906 GitHub stars and Instant has 10,564. Prometheus has the larger community by that measure.
Are Prometheus and Instant free?
Both are open source. Prometheus is licensed under Apache-2.0 and Instant under Apache-2.0. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between Prometheus and Instant?
Prometheus is written in Go and Instant in TypeScript. 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 Instant?
Choose Prometheus if you want the larger community (66,906 stars) or its Apache-2.0 licence terms. Choose Instant if its feature set, stack or Apache-2.0 licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.