Cortex 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?
Cortex
Horizontally scalable, multi-tenant Prometheus as a service
VS
Thanos
Highly available Prometheus setup with long-term storage
| Feature | Cortex | Thanos |
|---|---|---|
| Category | Monitoring & Status | Monitoring & Status |
| License | Apache-2.0 | Apache-2.0 |
| Language | Go | Go |
| Setup difficulty | Hard | Hard |
| Min. RAM | 1,024 MB | 1,024 MB |
| Deployment | docker, kubernetes, helm | docker, kubernetes, helm |
| GitHub stars | ★ 5,844 | ★ 14,167 |
| First released | 2016 | 2018 |
| Replaces | Datadog, Grafana Cloud | Datadog, Grafana Cloud |
Why pick each one
Frequently asked questions
Is Cortex or Thanos better?
Neither is universally better. Thanos has the larger community; both share a hard setup difficulty, so the decision comes down to features and licensing.
Are Cortex and Thanos free and open-source?
Yes. Cortex is licensed under Apache-2.0 and Thanos under Apache-2.0. Both can be self-hosted at no software cost.
Can I run Cortex and Thanos with Docker?
Cortex: yes. Thanos: yes.