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.
Not the right match-up?
Cortex
Horizontally scalable, multi-tenant Prometheus as a service
VS
Uptrace
OpenTelemetry-based tracing, metrics, and logs tool
| Feature | Cortex | Uptrace |
|---|---|---|
| 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 | ★ 5,844 | ★ 4,256 |
| First released | 2016 | 2021 |
| Replaces | Datadog, Grafana Cloud | Datadog, New Relic |
Why pick each one
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.