head to head · open source
Prometheus vs tile38
Prometheus has 66,109 GitHub stars, 10,839 forks, 890 open issues and last shipped 2 days ago. tile38 has 9,732 stars, 622 forks, 163 open issues and last shipped 17 days ago. Prometheus leads on adoption by 579% (66,109 vs 9,732 stars). Prometheus is written in Go under Apache-2.0; tile38 is written in Go under MIT. Prometheus has attracted 16% as many forks as stars, tile38 6%. 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 | tile38 | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 66K | ★ 9.7K |
| License | Apache-2.0 | MIT |
| Written in | Go | Go |
| Last push | 2026-09-17 | 2026-09-02 |
| Forks | ⑂ 11K | ⑂ 622 |
| 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 tile38 if
- You want the tile38 feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the MIT license terms
- Your stack matches Go
- You evaluated both and tile38 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 tile38
Tile38 is an open source, MIT licensed, in memory geolocation data store and spatial index that doubles as a realtime geofencing server, written in Go and aimed at developers who need to store, query, and react to location data in real time.
read the full tile38 overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is Prometheus or tile38 more popular?
Prometheus has 66,109 GitHub stars and tile38 has 9,732. Prometheus has the larger community by that measure.
Are Prometheus and tile38 free?
Both are open source. Prometheus is licensed under Apache-2.0 and tile38 under MIT. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between Prometheus and tile38?
Prometheus is written in Go and tile38 in Go. 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 tile38?
Choose Prometheus if you want the larger community (66,109 stars) or its Apache-2.0 licence terms. Choose tile38 if its feature set, stack or MIT licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.