Alertmanager vs Sensu Go

A side-by-side comparison of two self-hosted monitoring & status options — licensing, setup difficulty, resource needs, and what each one replaces.

Not the right match-up?
FeatureAlertmanagerSensu Go
CategoryMonitoring & StatusMonitoring & Status
LicenseApache-2.0MIT
LanguageGoGo
Setup difficultyMediumMedium
Min. RAM64 MB512 MB
Deploymentdocker, kubernetes, binarydocker, kubernetes, binary
GitHub stars★ 8,572★ 1,108
First released20152018
ReplacesPagerDuty, OpsgenieDatadog, PagerDuty

Why pick each one

Choose Alertmanager if…

  • Powerful routing logic
  • Standard in the Prometheus stack
Alertmanager details

Choose Sensu Go if…

  • Declarative configuration
  • Flexible event pipeline
Sensu Go details

Frequently asked questions

Is Alertmanager or Sensu Go better?

Neither is universally better. Alertmanager has the larger community; both share a medium setup difficulty, so the decision comes down to features and licensing.

Are Alertmanager and Sensu Go free and open-source?

Yes. Alertmanager is licensed under Apache-2.0 and Sensu Go under MIT. Both can be self-hosted at no software cost.

Can I run Alertmanager and Sensu Go with Docker?

Alertmanager: yes. Sensu Go: yes.

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