SHSelfHostIndex

Cortex vs Hertzbeat

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?
CO Cortex Horizontally scalable, multi-tenant Prometheus as a service VS HE Hertzbeat Real-time monitoring system with customizable templates
FeatureCortexHertzbeat
Deploy effortUnder-an-hour setupUnder-an-hour setup
Health score90 · Excellent91 · Excellent
CategoryMonitoring & StatusMonitoring & Status
LicenseApache-2.0Apache-2.0
LanguageGoJava
Setup difficultyHardMedium
Min. RAM1,024 MB1,024 MB
Deploymentdocker, kubernetes, helmdocker, bare-metal
GitHub stars★ 5,865★ 7,405
First released20162022
ReplacesDatadog, Grafana CloudZabbix, Datadog

What are Cortex and Hertzbeat?

Cortex

Cortex provides a horizontally scalable, highly available, multi-tenant, long-term store for Prometheus metrics. It offers a single API endpoint for querying and writing time series data across clusters.

  • Multi-tenant metrics storage
  • Horizontally scalable
  • Prometheus-compatible API
  • Long-term retention

Read the full Cortex guide →

Hertzbeat

HertzBeat is an open-source real-time monitoring system that checks websites, APIs, databases, servers, and more using customizable YAML templates. It includes alerting and a friendly dashboard with no agents required.

  • Agentless monitoring
  • Customizable YAML templates
  • Threshold alerting
  • Built-in dashboards

Read the full Hertzbeat guide →

Cortex vs Hertzbeat: key differences

Cortex is written in Go, while Hertzbeat is built with Java. Cortex is the more established project (first released 2016), while Hertzbeat arrived in 2022.

Why pick each one

Choose Cortex if…

  • Built for very large scale
  • True multi-tenancy

Watch out for

  • Operationally heavy
  • Overkill for small setups
Cortex details

Choose Hertzbeat if…

  • No agents to deploy
  • Flexible templates

Watch out for

  • JVM resource needs
  • Newer project
Hertzbeat details

Frequently asked questions

Is Cortex or Hertzbeat better?

Hertzbeat is the stronger all-round pick: it has both the larger community and the simpler medium setup. Consider Cortex if its specific feature set fits your needs better.

Are Cortex and Hertzbeat free and open-source?

Yes. Cortex is licensed under Apache-2.0 and Hertzbeat under Apache-2.0. Both can be self-hosted at no software cost.

Can I run Cortex and Hertzbeat with Docker?

Cortex: yes. Hertzbeat: yes.

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