head to head · open source
Prometheus vs rainfrog
Prometheus has 66,109 GitHub stars, 10,839 forks, 890 open issues and last shipped 2 days ago. rainfrog has 5,337 stars, 95 forks, 14 open issues and last shipped 2 days ago. Prometheus leads on adoption by 1,139% (66,109 vs 5,337 stars). Prometheus is written in Go under Apache-2.0; rainfrog is written in Rust under MIT. Prometheus has attracted 16% as many forks as stars, rainfrog 2%. 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 | rainfrog | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 66K | ★ 5.3K |
| License | Apache-2.0 | MIT |
| Written in | Go | Rust |
| Last push | 2026-09-17 | 2026-09-17 |
| Forks | ⑂ 11K | ⑂ 95 |
| 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 rainfrog if
- You want the rainfrog feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the MIT license terms
- Your stack matches Rust
- You evaluated both and rainfrog 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 rainfrog
rainfrog is a lightweight, MIT licensed terminal database client written in Rust, built for developers and operators who want to browse schemas, run queries, and inspect tables against PostgreSQL, MySQL, SQLite, and similar engines without leaving the shell.
read the full rainfrog overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is Prometheus or rainfrog more popular?
Prometheus has 66,109 GitHub stars and rainfrog has 5,337. Prometheus has the larger community by that measure.
Are Prometheus and rainfrog free?
Both are open source. Prometheus is licensed under Apache-2.0 and rainfrog under MIT. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between Prometheus and rainfrog?
Prometheus is written in Go and rainfrog in Rust. 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 rainfrog?
Choose Prometheus if you want the larger community (66,109 stars) or its Apache-2.0 licence terms. Choose rainfrog if its feature set, stack or MIT licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.