Graphite vs Thanos
A side-by-side comparison of two self-hosted monitoring & status options — licensing, setup difficulty, resource needs, and what each one replaces.
Graphite
Scalable real-time graphing and time series storage
VS
Thanos
Highly available Prometheus setup with long-term storage
| Feature | Graphite | Thanos |
|---|---|---|
| Deploy effort | Under-an-hour setup | Under-an-hour setup |
| Health score | 72 · Good | 94 · Excellent |
| Category | Monitoring & Status | Monitoring & Status |
| License | Apache-2.0 | Apache-2.0 |
| Language | JavaScript | Go |
| Setup difficulty | Medium | Hard |
| Min. RAM | 512 MB | 1,024 MB |
| Deployment | docker, bare-metal, source | docker, kubernetes, helm |
| GitHub stars | ★ 6,119 | ★ 14,214 |
| First released | 2008 | 2018 |
| Replaces | Datadog | Datadog, Grafana Cloud |
What are Graphite and Thanos?
Graphite
Graphite is a monitoring tool that stores numeric time series data and renders graphs of it on demand. It consists of Carbon for metric ingestion, Whisper for storage, and a Django-based web app for visualization.
- Time series storage with Whisper
- On-demand graph rendering
- Plain-text metric protocol
- Widely supported by collectors
Thanos
Thanos extends Prometheus with global query view, unlimited retention, and high availability. It uses object storage to keep metrics cheaply for years while presenting a single query endpoint across many Prometheus instances.
- Global query view
- Unlimited metric retention
- Object storage backend
- Downsampling for fast queries
Graphite vs Thanos: key differences
Graphite is written in JavaScript, while Thanos is built with Go. Graphite is the lighter option, starting around 512 MB of RAM against 1,024 MB for Thanos. Graphite is the more established project (first released 2008), while Thanos arrived in 2018. Thanos has the considerably larger community, at 14,214 GitHub stars versus 6,119.
Why pick each one
Choose Graphite if…
- Simple metric protocol
- Mature and stable
Watch out for
- Dated architecture
- Scaling requires extra components
Choose Thanos if…
- Scales Prometheus to massive deployments
- Cheap long-term storage
Watch out for
- Complex multi-component architecture
- Steep learning curve
Frequently asked questions
Is Graphite or Thanos better?
Neither is universally better. Thanos has the larger community, while Graphite is simpler to set up (medium difficulty). Choose based on the comparison table above and your own setup.
Are Graphite and Thanos free and open-source?
Yes. Graphite is licensed under Apache-2.0 and Thanos under Apache-2.0. Both can be self-hosted at no software cost.
Can I run Graphite and Thanos with Docker?
Graphite: yes. Thanos: yes.
Which is lighter on resources, Graphite or Thanos?
Graphite has the smaller minimum footprint at 512 MB of RAM, compared to about 1,024 MB for Thanos. Real-world usage depends on library size, user count, and enabled features.