Prometheus vs Pushgateway

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?
FeaturePrometheusPushgateway
CategoryMonitoring & StatusMonitoring & Status
LicenseApache-2.0Apache-2.0
LanguageGoGo
Setup difficultyMediumEasy
Min. RAM512 MB32 MB
Deploymentdocker, binary, helmdocker, kubernetes, binary
GitHub stars★ 65,616★ 3,356
First released20152015
ReplacesDatadogDatadog

Why pick each one

Choose Prometheus if…

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

Choose Pushgateway if…

  • Solves batch job monitoring
  • Simple to run
Pushgateway details

Frequently asked questions

Is Prometheus or Pushgateway better?

Neither is universally better. Prometheus 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 Prometheus and Pushgateway free and open-source?

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

Can I run Prometheus and Pushgateway with Docker?

Prometheus: yes. Pushgateway: yes.

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