Thanos vs Zabbix
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?
Thanos
Highly available Prometheus setup with long-term storage
VS
Zabbix
Enterprise-grade open-source monitoring solution
| Feature | Thanos | Zabbix |
|---|---|---|
| Category | Monitoring & Status | Monitoring & Status |
| License | Apache-2.0 | AGPL-3.0 |
| Language | Go | Go Template |
| Setup difficulty | Hard | Hard |
| Min. RAM | 1,024 MB | 1,024 MB |
| Deployment | docker, kubernetes, helm | docker, bare-metal |
| GitHub stars | ★ 14,167 | ★ 6,228 |
| First released | 2018 | 2001 |
| Replaces | Datadog, Grafana Cloud | Datadog, Nagios |
Why pick each one
Frequently asked questions
Is Thanos or Zabbix better?
Neither is universally better. Thanos has the larger community; both share a hard setup difficulty, so the decision comes down to features and licensing.
Are Thanos and Zabbix free and open-source?
Yes. Thanos is licensed under Apache-2.0 and Zabbix under AGPL-3.0. Both can be self-hosted at no software cost.
Can I run Thanos and Zabbix with Docker?
Thanos: yes. Zabbix: yes.