head to head · open source
Prometheus vs OceanBase
Prometheus has 66,906 GitHub stars, 10,969 forks, 890 open issues and last shipped yesterday. OceanBase has 10,363 stars, 1,930 forks, 599 open issues and last shipped 3 days ago. Prometheus leads on adoption by 546% (66,906 vs 10,363 stars). Prometheus is written in Go under Apache-2.0; OceanBase is written in C++ under Apache-2.0. Prometheus has attracted 16% as many forks as stars, OceanBase 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 (hacktoberfest), 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 | OceanBase | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 67K | ★ 10K |
| License | Apache-2.0 | Apache-2.0 |
| Written in | Go | C++ |
| Last push | 2026-11-02 | 2026-10-31 |
| Forks | ⑂ 11K | ⑂ 1.9K |
| 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 OceanBase if
- You want the OceanBase feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the Apache-2.0 license terms
- Your stack matches C++
- You evaluated both and OceanBase 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 OceanBase
English 中文版 OceanBase Database is a distributed relational database. It is developed entirely by Ant Group. The OceanBase Database is built on a common server cluster. Based on the Paxos protocol and its distributed structure, the OceanBase Database provides high availability and linear scalability. The OceanBase Database is not dependent on specific hardware architectures. Key features Transparent Scalability : 1,500 nodes, PB data and a trillion rows of records in one cluster. Ultra fast Performance : TPC C 707 million tmpC and TPC H 15.26 million QphH @30000GB. Cost Efficiency : saves 70%–90% of storage…
read the full OceanBase overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is Prometheus or OceanBase more popular?
Prometheus has 66,906 GitHub stars and OceanBase has 10,363. Prometheus has the larger community by that measure.
Are Prometheus and OceanBase free?
Both are open source. Prometheus is licensed under Apache-2.0 and OceanBase under Apache-2.0. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between Prometheus and OceanBase?
Prometheus is written in Go and OceanBase 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 OceanBase?
Choose Prometheus if you want the larger community (66,906 stars) or its Apache-2.0 licence terms. Choose OceanBase if its feature set, stack or Apache-2.0 licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.