LibreNMS 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?
FeatureLibreNMSPrometheus
CategoryMonitoring & StatusMonitoring & Status
LicenseGPL-3.0Apache-2.0
LanguagePHPGo
Setup difficultyMediumMedium
Min. RAM1,024 MB512 MB
Deploymentdocker, bare-metaldocker, binary, helm
GitHub stars★ 4,823★ 65,616
First released20132015
ReplacesNagiosDatadog

Why pick each one

Choose LibreNMS if…

  • Great for network devices
  • Strong auto-discovery
  • Active community
LibreNMS details

Choose Prometheus if…

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

Frequently asked questions

Is LibreNMS 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 LibreNMS and Prometheus free and open-source?

Yes. LibreNMS is licensed under GPL-3.0 and Prometheus under Apache-2.0. Both can be self-hosted at no software cost.

Can I run LibreNMS and Prometheus with Docker?

LibreNMS: yes. Prometheus: yes.

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