SHSelfHostIndex

Hertzbeat 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?
HE Hertzbeat Real-time monitoring system with customizable templates VS Thanos Highly available Prometheus setup with long-term storage
FeatureHertzbeatThanos
Deploy effortUnder-an-hour setupUnder-an-hour setup
Health score91 · Excellent94 · Excellent
CategoryMonitoring & StatusMonitoring & Status
LicenseApache-2.0Apache-2.0
LanguageJavaGo
Setup difficultyMediumHard
Min. RAM1,024 MB1,024 MB
Deploymentdocker, bare-metaldocker, kubernetes, helm
GitHub stars★ 7,405★ 14,214
First released20222018
ReplacesZabbix, DatadogDatadog, Grafana Cloud

What are Hertzbeat and Thanos?

Hertzbeat

HertzBeat is an open-source real-time monitoring system that checks websites, APIs, databases, servers, and more using customizable YAML templates. It includes alerting and a friendly dashboard with no agents required.

  • Agentless monitoring
  • Customizable YAML templates
  • Threshold alerting
  • Built-in dashboards

Read the full Hertzbeat guide →

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

Read the full Thanos guide →

Hertzbeat vs Thanos: key differences

Hertzbeat is written in Java, while Thanos is built with Go. Thanos is the more established project (first released 2018), while Hertzbeat arrived in 2022.

Why pick each one

Choose Hertzbeat if…

  • No agents to deploy
  • Flexible templates

Watch out for

  • JVM resource needs
  • Newer project
Hertzbeat details

Choose Thanos if…

  • Scales Prometheus to massive deployments
  • Cheap long-term storage

Watch out for

  • Complex multi-component architecture
  • Steep learning curve
Thanos details

Frequently asked questions

Is Hertzbeat or Thanos better?

Neither is universally better. Thanos has the larger community, while Hertzbeat is simpler to set up (medium difficulty). Choose based on the comparison table above and your own setup.

Are Hertzbeat and Thanos free and open-source?

Yes. Hertzbeat is licensed under Apache-2.0 and Thanos under Apache-2.0. Both can be self-hosted at no software cost.

Can I run Hertzbeat and Thanos with Docker?

Hertzbeat: yes. Thanos: yes.

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