head to head · open source
Prometheus vs knex
Prometheus has 66,106 GitHub stars, 10,840 forks, 890 open issues and last shipped yesterday. knex has 20,344 stars, 2,222 forks, 751 open issues and last shipped 3 months ago. Prometheus leads on adoption by 225% (66,106 vs 20,344 stars). Prometheus is written in Go under Apache-2.0; knex is written in JavaScript under MIT. Prometheus has attracted 16% as many forks as stars, knex 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 | knex | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 66K | ★ 20K |
| License | Apache-2.0 | MIT |
| Written in | Go | JavaScript |
| Last push | 2026-09-17 | 2026-06-26 |
| Forks | ⑂ 11K | ⑂ 2.2K |
| 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 knex if
- You want the knex feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the MIT license terms
- Your stack matches JavaScript
- You evaluated both and knex 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 knex
Knex is an open source SQL query builder for Node.js that targets PostgreSQL, MariaDB, MySQL, CockroachDB, Microsoft SQL Server, SQLite3 and Oracle, and it is aimed at JavaScript and TypeScript developers who need one query API across several database engines instead of hand written SQL per dialect.
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Frequently asked questions
Is Prometheus or knex more popular?
Prometheus has 66,106 GitHub stars and knex has 20,344. Prometheus has the larger community by that measure.
Are Prometheus and knex free?
Both are open source. Prometheus is licensed under Apache-2.0 and knex under MIT. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between Prometheus and knex?
Prometheus is written in Go and knex in JavaScript. 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 knex?
Choose Prometheus if you want the larger community (66,106 stars) or its Apache-2.0 licence terms. Choose knex if its feature set, stack or MIT licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.