head to head · open source
Prometheus vs libhv
Prometheus has 66,109 GitHub stars, 10,839 forks, 890 open issues and last shipped yesterday. libhv has 7,551 stars, 1,365 forks, 41 open issues and last shipped yesterday. Prometheus leads on adoption by 775% (66,109 vs 7,551 stars). Prometheus is written in Go under Apache-2.0; libhv is written in C under BSD-3-Clause. Prometheus has attracted 16% as many forks as stars, libhv 18%. 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 | libhv | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 66K | ★ 7.6K |
| License | Apache-2.0 | BSD-3-Clause |
| Written in | Go | C |
| Last push | 2026-09-17 | 2026-09-17 |
| Forks | ⑂ 11K | ⑂ 1.4K |
| 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 libhv if
- You want the libhv feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the BSD-3-Clause license terms
- Your stack matches C
- You evaluated both and libhv 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 libhv
libhv is a cross platform C/C++ network library for building TCP, UDP, SSL/TLS, HTTP, WebSocket, MQTT, and Redis clients and servers, written for developers who want the non blocking event loop model of libevent, libev, or libuv with a simpler API and more protocols built in.
read the full libhv overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is Prometheus or libhv more popular?
Prometheus has 66,109 GitHub stars and libhv has 7,551. Prometheus has the larger community by that measure.
Are Prometheus and libhv free?
Both are open source. Prometheus is licensed under Apache-2.0 and libhv under BSD-3-Clause. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between Prometheus and libhv?
Prometheus is written in Go and libhv in C. 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 libhv?
Choose Prometheus if you want the larger community (66,109 stars) or its Apache-2.0 licence terms. Choose libhv if its feature set, stack or BSD-3-Clause licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.