head to head · open source
Prometheus vs sled
Prometheus has 66,109 GitHub stars, 10,839 forks, 890 open issues and last shipped 2 days ago. sled has 9,091 stars, 427 forks, 172 open issues and last shipped 6 months ago. Prometheus leads on adoption by 627% (66,109 vs 9,091 stars). Prometheus is written in Go under Apache-2.0; sled is written in Rust under Apache-2.0. Prometheus has attracted 16% as many forks as stars, sled 5%. 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.
← all 13541 open source comparisons
Side by side
| Prometheus | sled | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 66K | ★ 9.1K |
| License | Apache-2.0 | Apache-2.0 |
| Written in | Go | Rust |
| Last push | 2026-09-17 | 2026-04-04 |
| Forks | ⑂ 11K | ⑂ 427 |
| 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 sled if
- You want the sled feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the Apache-2.0 license terms
- Your stack matches Rust
- You evaluated both and sled 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 sled
sled is an embedded key value database for Rust programs, written in Rust under the Apache 2.0 licence, aimed at developers who want a threadsafe, crash safe local store inside their own process instead of running a separate database server.
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 sled more popular?
Prometheus has 66,109 GitHub stars and sled has 9,091. Prometheus has the larger community by that measure.
Are Prometheus and sled free?
Both are open source. Prometheus is licensed under Apache-2.0 and sled under Apache-2.0. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between Prometheus and sled?
Prometheus is written in Go and sled 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 sled?
Choose Prometheus if you want the larger community (66,109 stars) or its Apache-2.0 licence terms. Choose sled if its feature set, stack or Apache-2.0 licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.