Monit 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?
FeatureMonitPrometheus
CategoryMonitoring & StatusMonitoring & Status
LicenseAGPL-3.0Apache-2.0
LanguageCGo
Setup difficultyEasyMedium
Min. RAM16 MB512 MB
Deploymentbare-metal, binarydocker, binary, helm
GitHub stars★ 200★ 65,616
First released20012015
ReplacesDatadogDatadog

Why pick each one

Choose Monit if…

  • Extremely lightweight
  • Self-healing actions
Monit details

Choose Prometheus if…

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

Frequently asked questions

Is Monit or Prometheus better?

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

Are Monit and Prometheus free and open-source?

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

Can I run Monit and Prometheus with Docker?

Monit: check the project docs for container support. Prometheus: yes.

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