Portainer CE vs Prometheus

A side-by-side comparison of two self-hosted apps from related categories — licensing, setup difficulty, resource needs, and what each one replaces.

Not the right match-up?
FeaturePortainer CEPrometheus
CategoryDashboards & StartpagesMonitoring & Status
LicenseZlibApache-2.0
LanguageTypeScriptGo
Setup difficultyEasyMedium
Min. RAM256 MB512 MB
Deploymentdocker, kubernetes, helmdocker, binary, helm
GitHub stars★ 38,184★ 65,616
First released20162015
ReplacesRancher, Docker DesktopDatadog

Why pick each one

Choose Portainer CE if…

  • Very beginner-friendly
  • Broad orchestrator support
Portainer CE details

Choose Prometheus if…

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

Frequently asked questions

Is Portainer CE or Prometheus better?

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

Are Portainer CE and Prometheus free and open-source?

Yes. Portainer CE is licensed under Zlib and Prometheus under Apache-2.0. Both can be self-hosted at no software cost.

Can I run Portainer CE and Prometheus with Docker?

Portainer CE: yes. Prometheus: yes.

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