head to head · open source
Prometheus vs rocksdb
Prometheus has 66,106 GitHub stars, 10,840 forks, 890 open issues and last shipped yesterday. rocksdb has 32,106 stars, 6,930 forks, 1,645 open issues and last shipped yesterday. Prometheus leads on adoption by 106% (66,106 vs 32,106 stars). Prometheus is written in Go under Apache-2.0; rocksdb is written in C++ under GPL-2.0. Prometheus has attracted 16% as many forks as stars, rocksdb 22%. rocksdb 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.
← all 8884 open source comparisons
Side by side
| Prometheus | rocksdb | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 66K | ★ 32K |
| License | Apache-2.0 | GPL-2.0 |
| Written in | Go | C++ |
| Last push | 2026-09-17 | 2026-09-17 |
| Forks | ⑂ 11K | ⑂ 6.9K |
| 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 rocksdb if
- You want the rocksdb feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the GPL-2.0 license terms
- Your stack matches C++
- You evaluated both and rocksdb 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 rocksdb
RocksDB is an embeddable, persistent key value store written in C++ and developed by the Facebook Database Engineering Team. It is a library rather than a standalone server, and it forms the core building block for a fast key value server. The project builds on earlier work on LevelDB by Sanjay Ghemawat and Jeff Dean, and it lives in the systems infrastructure and database ecosystem, carrying the topics database and storage engine. It has been public for roughly fourteen years and is dual licensed under GPLv2 and Apache 2.0, so a user may select either license at their option.
read the full rocksdb overview →
More in Infrastructure & Operations
Related comparisons
More Databases projects
Compare either of these against the rest of the Databases field.
Frequently asked questions
Is Prometheus or rocksdb more popular?
Prometheus has 66,106 GitHub stars and rocksdb has 32,106. Prometheus has the larger community by that measure.
Are Prometheus and rocksdb free?
Both are open source. Prometheus is licensed under Apache-2.0 and rocksdb under GPL-2.0. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between Prometheus and rocksdb?
Prometheus is written in Go and rocksdb 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 rocksdb?
Choose Prometheus if you want the larger community (66,106 stars) or its Apache-2.0 licence terms. Choose rocksdb if its feature set, stack or GPL-2.0 licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.