Cacti vs InfluxDB

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?
FeatureCactiInfluxDB
CategoryMonitoring & StatusMonitoring & Status
LicenseGPL-2.0MIT
LanguagePHPRust
Setup difficultyMediumMedium
Min. RAM512 MB512 MB
Deploymentbare-metal, docker, sourcedocker, kubernetes, binary
GitHub stars★ 1,852★ 31,683
First released20012013
ReplacesPRTG, SolarWindsDatadog, AWS Timestream

Why pick each one

Choose Cacti if…

  • Mature and reliable
  • Detailed graph templates
Cacti details

Choose InfluxDB if…

  • Excellent for IoT and metrics
  • Rich tooling and integrations
InfluxDB details

Frequently asked questions

Is Cacti or InfluxDB better?

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

Are Cacti and InfluxDB free and open-source?

Yes. Cacti is licensed under GPL-2.0 and InfluxDB under MIT. Both can be self-hosted at no software cost.

Can I run Cacti and InfluxDB with Docker?

Cacti: yes. InfluxDB: yes.

Related comparisons