head to head · open source
Prometheus vs Zabbix
Prometheus has 66,109 GitHub stars, 10,839 forks, 890 open issues and last shipped yesterday. Zabbix has 6,382 stars, 1,259 forks, 108 open issues and last shipped yesterday. Prometheus leads on adoption by 936% (66,109 vs 6,382 stars). Prometheus is written in Go under Apache-2.0; Zabbix is written in Go Template under AGPL-3.0. Prometheus has attracted 16% as many forks as stars, Zabbix 20%. Zabbix was the more recently maintained of the two, and both are self-hostable with no licence fee. The two share 3 topic tags (alerting, 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 | Zabbix | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 66K | ★ 6.4K |
| License | Apache-2.0 | AGPL-3.0 |
| Written in | Go | Go Template |
| Last push | 2026-09-17 | 2026-09-17 |
| Forks | ⑂ 11K | ⑂ 1.3K |
| 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 Zabbix if
- You want the Zabbix feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the AGPL-3.0 license terms
- Your stack matches Go Template
- You evaluated both and Zabbix 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 Zabbix
Zabbix is an enterprise class, open source distributed monitoring solution that measures the performance and availability of network devices, servers, services, and other IT resources. The project lives in the open source infrastructure monitoring and observability ecosystem, and its source is distributed under the AGPL 3.0 only license, with the repository carrying 6,374 stars and 1,255 forks. It is written using Go Template and is hosted by the Zabbix project at zabbix.com, where the download and documentation entry points are published. The stated scope runs from a simple standalone application through to a la…
read the full Zabbix overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is Prometheus or Zabbix more popular?
Prometheus has 66,109 GitHub stars and Zabbix has 6,382. Prometheus has the larger community by that measure.
Are Prometheus and Zabbix free?
Both are open source. Prometheus is licensed under Apache-2.0 and Zabbix under AGPL-3.0. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between Prometheus and Zabbix?
Prometheus is written in Go and Zabbix in Go Template. 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 Zabbix?
Choose Prometheus if you want the larger community (66,109 stars) or its Apache-2.0 licence terms. Choose Zabbix if its feature set, stack or AGPL-3.0 licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.