Cortex vs Kibana
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?
Cortex
Horizontally scalable, multi-tenant Prometheus as a service
VS
Kibana
Visualization and exploration for Elasticsearch data
| Feature | Cortex | Kibana |
|---|---|---|
| Category | Monitoring & Status | Monitoring & Status |
| License | Apache-2.0 | AGPL-3.0 |
| Language | Go | TypeScript |
| Setup difficulty | Hard | Medium |
| Min. RAM | 1,024 MB | 1,024 MB |
| Deployment | docker, kubernetes, helm | docker, kubernetes, binary |
| GitHub stars | ★ 5,844 | ★ 21,230 |
| First released | 2016 | 2013 |
| Replaces | Datadog, Grafana Cloud | Splunk, Datadog |
Why pick each one
Frequently asked questions
Is Cortex or Kibana better?
Kibana 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 Kibana free and open-source?
Yes. Cortex is licensed under Apache-2.0 and Kibana under AGPL-3.0. Both can be self-hosted at no software cost.
Can I run Cortex and Kibana with Docker?
Cortex: yes. Kibana: yes.