Cortex

Spec sheet

What it does

Cortex is a horizontally scalable, highly available, multi-tenant, long-term storage solution for Prometheus and OpenTelemetry metrics.Read 8 Oct 2026 · cortexmetrics.io

Purpose

Cortex is a horizontally scalable, highly available, multi-tenant long-term storage solution for Prometheus and OpenTelemetry metrics.Read 9 Oct 2026 · cortexmetrics.io

API

Cortex exposes an HTTP API for pushing and querying time-series data and operating the cluster.Read 9 Oct 2026 · cortexmetrics.io

Support

The project directs users to its CNCF Slack channel, GitHub issues, and the cortex-users mailing list for questions.Read 9 Oct 2026 · cortexmetrics.io

License

Cortex is an open-source project licensed under Apache License 2.0.Read 9 Oct 2026 · cortexmetrics.io

Founded

2016Read 28 Sep 2026 · cortexmetrics.io

Deployment modes

Cortex can run as a single binary for learning, development, and testing, or as independent microservices for production deployments.Read 9 Oct 2026 · cortexmetrics.io

Encryption

Cortex supports TLS between its components and S3 server-side encryption using SSE-S3 or SSE-KMS for supported storage paths.Read 8 Oct 2026 · cortexmetrics.io

HTTP API

Cortex exposes an HTTP API for pushing and querying time series data and operating the cluster.Read 8 Oct 2026 · cortexmetrics.io

Kubernetes

The production-style microservices setup runs Cortex components as separate services in Kubernetes.Read 8 Oct 2026 · cortexmetrics.io

Metrics and queries

Prometheus sends metrics to Cortex using remote_write, and Grafana can query Cortex using PromQL.Read 9 Oct 2026 · cortexmetrics.io

Query and ingestion

Prometheus sends samples to Cortex through its remote write API, and users query metrics with PromQL.Read 8 Oct 2026 · cortexmetrics.io

Scalability and availability

Cortex can run across multiple machines, and clustered deployments can replicate data between machines.Read 9 Oct 2026 · cortexmetrics.io

Scaling and availability

Cortex can run across multiple machines in a cluster and replicate data between machines.Read 8 Oct 2026 · cortexmetrics.io

Security audit

A third-party audit reported seven vulnerabilities, and the project says fixes shipped in Cortex v1.21.1, released June 4, 2026.Read 9 Oct 2026 · cortexmetrics.io

Security boundary

Cortex requires authentication and authorization to be configured externally, typically through a reverse proxy.Read 8 Oct 2026 · cortexmetrics.io

Security configuration

Cortex supports TLS between its components, while authentication and authorization are typically added through a reverse proxy.Read 9 Oct 2026 · cortexmetrics.io

Storage integrations

Cortex supports S3, Google Cloud Storage, Swift, and Microsoft Azure for long-term metric storage.Read 9 Oct 2026 · cortexmetrics.io

Supported release targets

Regular release artifacts include Linux and macOS binaries; other operating systems may work from source but are not regular supported release targets.Read 9 Oct 2026 · cortexmetrics.io

Tenant access limitation

Cortex components trust the X-Scope-OrgID tenant header, so the security guide says an additional protection layer is needed to guard the installation.Read 8 Oct 2026 · cortexmetrics.io

Tenant isolation

Cortex can isolate data and queries from multiple independent Prometheus sources in one cluster.Read 9 Oct 2026 · cortexmetrics.io

Tracing

Cortex supports distributed tracing using Jaeger or OpenTelemetry.Read 8 Oct 2026 · cortexmetrics.io

Where Specifiction places it

• Time-Series Databases#18 of 367.9