Pushgateway vs VictoriaMetrics
A side-by-side comparison of two self-hosted monitoring & status options — licensing, setup difficulty, resource needs, and what each one replaces.
VictoriaMetrics
Fast, cost-effective time series database and monitoring solution
| Feature | Pushgateway | VictoriaMetrics |
|---|---|---|
| Deploy effort | Under-an-hour setup | Under-an-hour setup |
| Health score | 87 · Excellent | 95 · Excellent |
| Category | Monitoring & Status | Monitoring & Status |
| License | Apache-2.0 | Apache-2.0 |
| Language | Go | Go |
| Setup difficulty | Easy | Medium |
| Min. RAM | 32 MB | 256 MB |
| Deployment | docker, kubernetes, binary | docker, kubernetes, helm |
| GitHub stars | ★ 3,369 | ★ 17,760 |
| First released | 2015 | 2018 |
| Replaces | Datadog | Datadog, Grafana Cloud |
What are Pushgateway and VictoriaMetrics?
Pushgateway
The Prometheus Pushgateway allows ephemeral and batch jobs to expose their metrics to Prometheus. Jobs push metrics to the gateway, which Prometheus then scrapes on its regular schedule.
- Accepts pushed metrics
- Bridges batch jobs to Prometheus
- Persists metrics to disk
- Tiny footprint
VictoriaMetrics
VictoriaMetrics is a fast, cost-effective, and scalable monitoring solution and time series database. It is a drop-in replacement for Prometheus storage with lower resource usage and a high-performance query engine.
- Low memory footprint
- MetricsQL query language
- Single-binary or cluster mode
- Prometheus-compatible
Pushgateway vs VictoriaMetrics: key differences
Both projects are written in Go. Pushgateway is the lighter option, starting around 32 MB of RAM against 256 MB for VictoriaMetrics. Pushgateway is the more established project (first released 2015), while VictoriaMetrics arrived in 2018. VictoriaMetrics has the considerably larger community, at 17,760 GitHub stars versus 3,369.
Why pick each one
Choose Pushgateway if…
- Solves batch job monitoring
- Simple to run
Watch out for
- Not for high-frequency metrics
- Can become a single point of failure
Choose VictoriaMetrics if…
- Excellent compression and speed
- Easy single-binary deployment
Watch out for
- MetricsQL differs slightly from PromQL
- Smaller ecosystem than Prometheus
Frequently asked questions
Is Pushgateway or VictoriaMetrics better?
Neither is universally better. VictoriaMetrics has the larger community, while Pushgateway is simpler to set up (easy difficulty). Choose based on the comparison table above and your own setup.
Are Pushgateway and VictoriaMetrics free and open-source?
Yes. Pushgateway is licensed under Apache-2.0 and VictoriaMetrics under Apache-2.0. Both can be self-hosted at no software cost.
Can I run Pushgateway and VictoriaMetrics with Docker?
Pushgateway: yes. VictoriaMetrics: yes.
Which is lighter on resources, Pushgateway or VictoriaMetrics?
Pushgateway has the smaller minimum footprint at 32 MB of RAM, compared to about 256 MB for VictoriaMetrics. Real-world usage depends on library size, user count, and enabled features.