head to head · open source
Prometheus vs kairosdb
Prometheus has 66,106 GitHub stars, 10,840 forks, 890 open issues and last shipped yesterday. kairosdb has 1,761 stars, 340 forks, 141 open issues and last shipped 7 months ago. Prometheus leads on adoption by 3,654% (66,106 vs 1,761 stars). Prometheus is written in Go under Apache-2.0; kairosdb is written in Java under Apache-2.0. Prometheus has attracted 16% as many forks as stars, kairosdb 19%. Prometheus was the more recently maintained of the two, and both are self-hostable with no licence fee. The two share 1 topic tag (metrics), 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 | kairosdb | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 66K | ★ 1.8K |
| License | Apache-2.0 | Apache-2.0 |
| Written in | Go | Java |
| Last push | 2026-09-17 | 2026-03-05 |
| Forks | ⑂ 11K | ⑂ 340 |
| 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 kairosdb if
- You want the kairosdb feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the Apache-2.0 license terms
- Your stack matches Java
- You evaluated both and kairosdb 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 kairosdb
KairosDB is fast distributed scalable time series database. It is written in Java. It is built on top of Cassandra. It sits in Infrastructure & Operations / Databases. Its topics are java, kairosdb, metrics, timeseries, timeseries database. It uses Apache 2.0 license. Its tagline and GitHub description both say fast scalable time series database. It has 1761 stars, 340 forks, 141 open issues, and no contributor count. Its repo age is 14 years. Its last push is 2026 03 05T22:27:54Z.
read the full kairosdb overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is Prometheus or kairosdb more popular?
Prometheus has 66,106 GitHub stars and kairosdb has 1,761. Prometheus has the larger community by that measure.
Are Prometheus and kairosdb free?
Both are open source. Prometheus is licensed under Apache-2.0 and kairosdb under Apache-2.0. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between Prometheus and kairosdb?
Prometheus is written in Go and kairosdb in Java. 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 kairosdb?
Choose Prometheus if you want the larger community (66,106 stars) or its Apache-2.0 licence terms. Choose kairosdb if its feature set, stack or Apache-2.0 licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.