cAdvisor vs Thanos
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?
cAdvisor
Container resource usage and performance analysis
VS
Thanos
Highly available Prometheus setup with long-term storage
| Feature | cAdvisor | Thanos |
|---|---|---|
| Category | Monitoring & Status | Monitoring & Status |
| License | Apache-2.0 | Apache-2.0 |
| Language | Go | Go |
| Setup difficulty | Easy | Hard |
| Min. RAM | 64 MB | 1,024 MB |
| Deployment | docker, kubernetes, binary | docker, kubernetes, helm |
| GitHub stars | ★ 19,342 | ★ 14,167 |
| First released | 2014 | 2018 |
| Replaces | Datadog | Datadog, Grafana Cloud |
Why pick each one
Frequently asked questions
Is cAdvisor or Thanos better?
cAdvisor is the stronger all-round pick: it has both the larger community and the simpler easy setup. Consider Thanos if its specific feature set fits your needs better.
Are cAdvisor and Thanos free and open-source?
Yes. cAdvisor is licensed under Apache-2.0 and Thanos under Apache-2.0. Both can be self-hosted at no software cost.
Can I run cAdvisor and Thanos with Docker?
cAdvisor: yes. Thanos: yes.