head to head · open source
Prometheus vs pikiwidb
Prometheus has 66,109 GitHub stars, 10,839 forks, 890 open issues and last shipped yesterday. pikiwidb has 6,129 stars, 1,169 forks, 77 open issues and last shipped 2 days ago. Prometheus leads on adoption by 979% (66,109 vs 6,129 stars). Prometheus is written in Go under Apache-2.0; pikiwidb is written in C++ under BSD-3-Clause. Prometheus has attracted 16% as many forks as stars, pikiwidb 19%. 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 | pikiwidb | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 66K | ★ 6.1K |
| License | Apache-2.0 | BSD-3-Clause |
| Written in | Go | C++ |
| Last push | 2026-09-17 | 2026-09-16 |
| Forks | ⑂ 11K | ⑂ 1.2K |
| 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 pikiwidb if
- You want the pikiwidb 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 pikiwidb 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 pikiwidb
Pikiwidb is a Redis compatible, RocksDB backed persistent key value database from Qihoo's infrastructure team, built for teams whose Redis working set has outgrown memory and who want to keep the Redis protocol without paying the memory price curve.
read the full pikiwidb overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is Prometheus or pikiwidb more popular?
Prometheus has 66,109 GitHub stars and pikiwidb has 6,129. Prometheus has the larger community by that measure.
Are Prometheus and pikiwidb free?
Both are open source. Prometheus is licensed under Apache-2.0 and pikiwidb under BSD-3-Clause. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between Prometheus and pikiwidb?
Prometheus is written in Go and pikiwidb 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 pikiwidb?
Choose Prometheus if you want the larger community (66,109 stars) or its Apache-2.0 licence terms. Choose pikiwidb if its feature set, stack or BSD-3-Clause licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.