Cortex vs Uptrace
A side-by-side comparison of two self-hosted monitoring & status options — licensing, setup difficulty, resource needs, and what each one replaces.
| Feature | Cortex | Uptrace |
|---|---|---|
| Deploy effort | Under-an-hour setup | Under-an-hour setup |
| Health score | 90 · Excellent | 88 · Excellent |
| Category | Monitoring & Status | Monitoring & Status |
| License | Apache-2.0 | BSL-1.1 |
| Language | Go | Go |
| Setup difficulty | Hard | Medium |
| Min. RAM | 1,024 MB | 512 MB |
| Deployment | docker, kubernetes, helm | docker, kubernetes, binary |
| GitHub stars | ★ 5,865 | ★ 4,290 |
| First released | 2016 | 2021 |
| Replaces | Datadog, Grafana Cloud | Datadog, New Relic |
What are Cortex and Uptrace?
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
Uptrace
Uptrace is an open-source observability tool that uses OpenTelemetry to collect distributed traces, metrics, and logs. It stores data in ClickHouse and provides a clean UI for analyzing application performance.
- Distributed tracing
- Metrics and logs support
- ClickHouse storage
- OpenTelemetry-native
Cortex vs Uptrace: key differences
Both projects are written in Go. Licensing differs — Apache-2.0 for Cortex versus BSL-1.1 for Uptrace. Uptrace is the lighter option, starting around 512 MB of RAM against 1,024 MB for Cortex. Cortex is the more established project (first released 2016), while Uptrace arrived in 2021.
Why pick each one
Choose Cortex if…
- Built for very large scale
- True multi-tenancy
Watch out for
- Operationally heavy
- Overkill for small setups
Choose Uptrace if…
- Efficient ClickHouse backend
- Easy to deploy
Watch out for
- BSL license restrictions
- Smaller community
Frequently asked questions
Is Cortex or Uptrace better?
Neither is universally better. Cortex has the larger community, while Uptrace is simpler to set up (medium difficulty). Choose based on the comparison table above and your own setup.
Are Cortex and Uptrace free and open-source?
Yes. Cortex is licensed under Apache-2.0 and Uptrace under BSL-1.1. Both can be self-hosted at no software cost.
Can I run Cortex and Uptrace with Docker?
Cortex: yes. Uptrace: yes.
Which is lighter on resources, Cortex or Uptrace?
Uptrace has the smaller minimum footprint at 512 MB of RAM, compared to about 1,024 MB for Cortex. Real-world usage depends on library size, user count, and enabled features.