head to head · open source
Prometheus vs TDengine
Prometheus has 66,106 GitHub stars, 10,840 forks, 890 open issues and last shipped yesterday. TDengine has 25,121 stars, 5,018 forks, 434 open issues and last shipped yesterday. Prometheus leads on adoption by 163% (66,106 vs 25,121 stars). Prometheus is written in Go under Apache-2.0; TDengine is written in C under AGPL-3.0. Prometheus has attracted 16% as many forks as stars, TDengine 20%. Prometheus was the more recently maintained of the two, and both are self-hostable with no licence fee. The two share 2 topic tags (metrics, monitoring), 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 | TDengine | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 66K | ★ 25K |
| License | Apache-2.0 | AGPL-3.0 |
| Written in | Go | C |
| Last push | 2026-09-17 | 2026-09-17 |
| Forks | ⑂ 11K | ⑂ 5.0K |
| 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 TDengine if
- You want the TDengine feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the AGPL-3.0 license terms
- Your stack matches C
- You evaluated both and TDengine 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 TDengine
TDengine is an open source, cloud native time series database written in C and licensed under AGPL 3.0, designed for IoT, connected car and Industrial IoT workloads that ingest TB and even PB scale data per day from billions of sensors and data collectors.
read the full TDengine overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is Prometheus or TDengine more popular?
Prometheus has 66,106 GitHub stars and TDengine has 25,121. Prometheus has the larger community by that measure.
Are Prometheus and TDengine free?
Both are open source. Prometheus is licensed under Apache-2.0 and TDengine under AGPL-3.0. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between Prometheus and TDengine?
Prometheus is written in Go and TDengine 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 TDengine?
Choose Prometheus if you want the larger community (66,106 stars) or its Apache-2.0 licence terms. Choose TDengine if its feature set, stack or AGPL-3.0 licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.