InfluxDB vs Prometheus

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?
FeatureInfluxDBPrometheus
CategoryMonitoring & StatusMonitoring & Status
LicenseMITApache-2.0
LanguageRustGo
Setup difficultyMediumMedium
Min. RAM512 MB512 MB
Deploymentdocker, kubernetes, binarydocker, binary, helm
GitHub stars★ 31,683★ 65,616
First released20132015
ReplacesDatadog, AWS TimestreamDatadog

Why pick each one

Choose InfluxDB if…

  • Excellent for IoT and metrics
  • Rich tooling and integrations
InfluxDB details

Choose Prometheus if…

  • Powerful query language
  • Reliable and scalable
  • Huge ecosystem
Prometheus details

Frequently asked questions

Is InfluxDB or Prometheus better?

Neither is universally better. Prometheus has the larger community; both share a medium setup difficulty, so the decision comes down to features and licensing.

Are InfluxDB and Prometheus free and open-source?

Yes. InfluxDB is licensed under MIT and Prometheus under Apache-2.0. Both can be self-hosted at no software cost.

Can I run InfluxDB and Prometheus with Docker?

InfluxDB: yes. Prometheus: yes.

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