PHP-FPM Exporter vs Grafana Tempo
A side-by-side comparison of two self-hosted monitoring & status options — licensing, setup difficulty, resource needs, and what each one replaces.
Grafana Tempo
Easy-to-operate, high-scale distributed tracing backend
| Feature | PHP-FPM Exporter | Grafana Tempo |
|---|---|---|
| Deploy effort | Under-an-hour setup | Under-an-hour setup |
| Health score | 42 · Fair | 90 · Excellent |
| Category | Monitoring & Status | Monitoring & Status |
| License | MIT | AGPL-3.0 |
| Language | Go | Go |
| Setup difficulty | Easy | Medium |
| Min. RAM | 64 MB | 512 MB |
| Deployment | docker, binary, kubernetes | docker, kubernetes, helm |
| GitHub stars | ★ 720 | ★ 5,487 |
| First released | 2017 | 2020 |
| Replaces | New Relic PHP, Datadog APM | Datadog APM |
What are PHP-FPM Exporter and Grafana Tempo?
PHP-FPM Exporter
PHP-FPM Exporter scrapes the PHP-FPM status page and exposes pool metrics such as active processes, request queue length, and slow requests as Prometheus metrics. It helps operators monitor PHP application worker health.
- FPM pool process metrics
- Slow request tracking
- Single static binary
- Works with multiple pools
Grafana Tempo
Grafana Tempo is a high-scale distributed tracing backend that requires only object storage and integrates with Grafana, Loki, and Prometheus. It indexes only trace IDs to keep operation simple and cheap.
- Object-storage-only backend
- Cheap large-scale tracing
- Grafana integration
- TraceQL query language
PHP-FPM Exporter vs Grafana Tempo: key differences
Both projects are written in Go. Licensing differs — MIT for PHP-FPM Exporter versus AGPL-3.0 for Grafana Tempo. PHP-FPM Exporter is the lighter option, starting around 64 MB of RAM against 512 MB for Grafana Tempo. PHP-FPM Exporter is the more established project (first released 2017), while Grafana Tempo arrived in 2020. Grafana Tempo has the considerably larger community, at 5,487 GitHub stars versus 720.
Why pick each one
Choose PHP-FPM Exporter if…
- Easy to add to PHP stacks
- No dependencies
Watch out for
- Requires FPM status enabled
- Metrics only, no UI
Choose Grafana Tempo if…
- Very cost-effective
- Simple operations
Watch out for
- Best paired with Grafana stack
- Limited standalone UI
Frequently asked questions
Is PHP-FPM Exporter or Grafana Tempo better?
Neither is universally better. Grafana Tempo has the larger community, while PHP-FPM Exporter is simpler to set up (easy difficulty). Choose based on the comparison table above and your own setup.
Are PHP-FPM Exporter and Grafana Tempo free and open-source?
Yes. PHP-FPM Exporter is licensed under MIT and Grafana Tempo under AGPL-3.0. Both can be self-hosted at no software cost.
Can I run PHP-FPM Exporter and Grafana Tempo with Docker?
PHP-FPM Exporter: yes. Grafana Tempo: yes.
Which is lighter on resources, PHP-FPM Exporter or Grafana Tempo?
PHP-FPM Exporter has the smaller minimum footprint at 64 MB of RAM, compared to about 512 MB for Grafana Tempo. Real-world usage depends on library size, user count, and enabled features.