ntopng 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?
FeaturentopngPrometheus
CategoryMonitoring & StatusMonitoring & Status
LicenseGPL-3.0Apache-2.0
LanguageLuaGo
Setup difficultyMediumMedium
Min. RAM512 MB512 MB
Deploymentdocker, bare-metaldocker, binary, helm
GitHub stars★ 8,069★ 65,616
First released20132015
ReplacesSolarWinds NetFlowDatadog

Why pick each one

Choose ntopng if…

  • Deep network visibility
  • Fast packet processing
ntopng details

Choose Prometheus if…

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

Frequently asked questions

Is ntopng 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 ntopng and Prometheus free and open-source?

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

Can I run ntopng and Prometheus with Docker?

ntopng: yes. Prometheus: yes.

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